"Young Trade is dead, And swart Work sullen sits in the hillside fern "Spring-germs, spring-germs, Albeit the towns have left you place to play, Stay feed the worms." PRATTVILLE, ALABAMA, 1868. V. LIFE AND SONG. "IF life were caught by a clarionet, And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed, "Then would this breathing clarionet For none o' the singers ever yet "Or clearly sung his true, true thought, "Or lived and sung, that Life and Song Might each express the other's all, Since both were one, to stand or fall : 1868. "So that the wonder struck the crowd, Who shouted it about the land: His work, a singing with his hand!" VI. TO RICHARD WAGNER. "I SAW a sky of stars that rolled in grime. "Fierce burned the furnaces; yet all seemed well, Of customs, old constraints, and narrow ills; Thou, lithe Invention, wake and pry and guess, Till thy deft mind invents me Happiness.' "And I beheld high scaffoldings of creeds Crumbling from round Religion's perfect Fane: And a vast noise of rights, wrongs, powers, needs, -Cries of new Faiths that called 'This Way is plain,' -Grindings of upper against lower greeds -Fond sighs for old things, shouts for new,-did reign Below that stream of golden fire that broke, Mottled with red, above the seas of smoke. "Hark! Gay fanfares from halls of old Romance Strike through the clouds of clamor : who be these That, paired in rich processional, advance From darkness o'er the murk mad factories Into yon flaming road, and sink, strange Ministrants ! Sheer down to earth, with many minstrelsies And motions fine, and mix about the scene And fill the Time with forms of ancient mien ? “Bright ladies and brave knights of Fatherland; Dim ghosts, of earth, air, water, fire, steel, gold, Wind, grief, and love; a lewd and lurking band Of Powers-dark Conspiracy, Cunning cold, Gray Sorcery; magic cloaks and rings and rods; Valkyries, heroes, Rhinemaids, giants, gods! "O Wagner, westward bring thy heavenly art, Thine ears hear deeper than thine eyes can see. Hast power to say the Time in terms of tone." 1877. VII. A SONG OF LOVE. "HEY, rose, just born Twin to a thorn; Was 't so with you, O Love and Scorn? "Sweet eyes that smiled, Now wet and wild; O Eye and Tear-mother and child. "Well: Love and Pain Be kinsfolk twain : Yet would, Oh would I could love again." 5 TO BEETHOVEN. IN o'er-strict calyx lingering, Lay music's bud too long unblown, O Psalmist of the weak, the strong, Sole Hymner of the whole of life, I know not how, I care not why,— It soothes my accusations sour 'Gainst thoughts that fray the restless soul: The stain of death; the pain of power; The lack of love 'twixt part and whole; The yea-nay of Freewill and Fate, The praise a poet wins too late Who starves from earth into a star; The lies that serve great parties well, The loves that send warm souls to hell, |