Coscienza fusca

41

Tones more brave than trumpet's breath;
Tell me, maidens, have ye known
Household charm more sweetly rare,
Grace of woman ampler blown,
Modesty more debonair,

Younger heart with wit full grown?
Oh for an hour of my prine,
The pulse of my hotter years,
That I might praise her in rhyme
Would tingle your eyelids to tears,
Our sweetness, our strength, and our star,
Our hope, our joy, and our trust,
Who lifted us out of the dust,
And made us whatever we are!

IV

Whiter than moonshine upon snow Her raiment is, but round the hem

51

60

Crimson stained; and, as to and fro
Her sandals flash, we see on them,
And on her instep veined with blue,
Flecks of crimson, on those fair feet,
High-arched, Diana-like, and fleet,
Fit for no grosser stain than dew:
Oh, call them rather chrisms than stains,
Sacred and from heroic veins !
For, in the glory-guarded pass,
Her haughty and far-shining head
She bowed to shrive Leonidas
With his imperishable dead;
Her, too, Morgarten saw,

71

Where the Swiss lion fleshed his icy paw;
She followed Cromwell's quenchless star
Where the grim Puritan tread
Shook Marston, Naseby, and Dunbar:
Yea, on her feet are dearer dyes
Yet fresh, not looked on with untearful
eyes.

Where now our broad-browed poet sleeps
Dear to both Englands; near him he
Who wore the ring of Canace;
But most her heart to rapture leaps
Where stood that era-parting bridge,
O'er which, with footfall still as dew,
The Old Time passed into the New;
Where, as your stealthy river creeps,
He whispers to his listening weeds
Tales of sublimest homespun deeds.
Here English law and English thought
'Gainst the self-will of England fought;
And here were men (coequal with their
fate),

Who did great things, unconscious they were great.

They dreamed not what a die was cast With that first answering shot; what then? There was their duty; they were men Schooled the soul's inward gospel to obey, Though leading to the lion's den.

They felt the habit-hallowed world give way

Beneath their lives, and on went they,
Unhappy who was last.

When Buttrick gave the word,

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That awful idol of the unchallenged Past, Strong in their love, and in their lineage

With men whom dust of faction cannot blind

To the slow tracings of the Eternal Mind; With men by culture trained and fortified, Who bitter duty to sweet lusts prefer, Fearless to counsel and obey.

Conscience my sceptre is, and law my sword,

Not to be drawn in passion or in play, 190 But terrible to punish and deter; Implacable as God's word,

Like it, a shepherd's crook to them that blindly err.

Your firm-pulsed sires, my martyrs and my saints,

Offshoots of that one stock whose patient

Verses, leap forth in the sun,
Bearing the joyance along
Like a train of fire as ye run!
Pause not for choosing of words,
Let them but blossom and sing
Blithe as the orchards and birds
With the new coming of spring!
Dance in your jollity, bells;
Shout, cannon; cease not, ye drums;
Answer, ye hillside and dells;
Bow, all ye people! She comes,
Radiant, calm-fronted, as when
She hallowed that April day.
Stay with us! Yes, thou shalt stay,
Softener and strengthener of men,
Freedom, not won by the vain,
Not to be courted in play,
Not to be kept without pain.
Stay with us! Yes, thou wilt stay,
Handmaid and mistress of all,
Kindler of deed and of thought,
Thou that to hut and to hall
Equal deliverance brought !
Souls of her martyrs, draw near,
Touch our dull lips with your fire,
That we may praise without fear
Her our delight, our desire,
Our faith's inextinguishable star,
Our hope, our remembrance, our trust,
Our present, our past, our to be,

Who will mingle her life with our dust And makes us deserve to be free! 1875.

POEM

UNDER THE OLD ELM1

220

230

240

250 1875.

THE

READ AT CAMBRIDGE ON HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF WASHINGTON'S TAKING COMMAND OF THE AMERICAN ARMY, 3D JULY, 1775

I

I

WORDS pass as wind, but where great deeds were done

A power abides transfused from sire to

son:

1 I think the Old Elm' the best of the three [memorial poems], mainly because it was composed after my college duties were over, though even in that I was distracted by the intervention of the Commencement dinner. (LOWELL, letter of January 14, 1877.)

We, too, here in my birthplace, having found out

that something happened here a hundred years ago, must have our centennial; and, since my friend and townsman Dr. Holmes could n't be had, I felt bound to do the poetry for the day. We have still standing the elm under which Washington took command of the American (till then provincial) army, and under which also Whitefield had preached some thirty years before. I took advantage of the occasion to hold out a hand of kindly reconciliation to Virginia. I could do it with the profounder feeling, that no family lost more than mineby the Civil War. Three nephews (the hope of our race). were killed in one or other of the Virginia battles, and three cousins on other of those bloody fields. (LOWELL, letter of July 6, 1875. Quoted by permission of Messrs. Harper & Brothers.)

See also the letters of October 16, 1875, and February 22, 1877.