Dreaming of gods, men, nuns and brides, between Old companies of oaks that inward lean To join their radiant amplitudes of green I slowly move, with ranging looks that pass So close, the heaven of blue is seen I wander to the zigzag-cornered fence The march of culture, setting limb and thorn There, while I pause, my fieldward-faring eyes Take harvests, where the stately corn-ranks rise, Of inward dignities And large benignities and insights wise, Graces and modest majesties. Thus, without theft, I reap another's field; Thus, without tilth, I house a wondrous yield, And heap my heart with quintuple crops concealed. Look, out of line one tall corn-captain stands That leads the vanward of his timid time And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme- Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to grow By double increment, above, below; Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee, Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalry That moves in gentle curves of courtesy ; Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense, Transmuted from the four wild elements. Drawn to high plans, Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal man's, Yet ever piercest downward in the mould And keepest hold Upon the reverend and steadfast earth Yea, standest smiling in thy future grave, Serene and brave, With unremitting breath Inhaling life from death, Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent, Thyself thy monument. As poets should, Thou hast built up thy hardihood With universal food, Drawn in select proportion fair From honest mould and vagabond air ; From darkness of the dreadful night, And joyful light; From antique ashes, whose departed flame In thee has finer life and longer fame ; From wounds and balms, From storms and calms, From potsherds and dry bones And ruin-stones. Into thy vigorous substance thou hast wrought Whate'er the hand of Circumstance hath brought; Yea, into cool solacing green hast spun White radiance hot from out the sun. So thou dost mutually leaven Strength of earth with grace of heaven; So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold, And many a heart-perplexing opposite, Akin by blood to high and low, In equal care to nourish lord in hall Or beast in stall: Thou took'st from all that thou mightst give to all. O steadfast dweller on the selfsame spot Whose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sand Of trade, for ever rise and fall With alternation whimsical, Enduring scarce a day, Then swept away By swift engulfments of incalculable tides Whereon capricious Commerce rides. To where, beyond the mouldering mill, Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest By restless-hearted children left to lie With gullies scarified Where keen Neglect his lash hath plied, Scorning the slow reward of patient grain, Lulled by smooth rippling loans, in idle trance Aye, as each year began, My farmer to the neighboring city ran; Passed with a mournful anxious face Into the banker's inner place; Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace; Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the grass; Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass; With many an oh and if and but alas Parried or swallowed searching questions rude, He issues smiling from the fatal door, And buys with lavish hand his yearly store Till his small borrowings will yield no more. Aye, as each year declined, With bitter heart and ever-brooding mind He mourned his fate unkind. In dust, in rain, with might and main, He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain, Fretted for news that made him fret again, Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale, And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail In hope or fear alike for ever pale. And thus from year to year, through hope and fear, With many a curse and many a secret tear, Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear, At last He woke to find his foolish dreaming past, Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his way From rascal statesman down to petty knave; A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave. Unmourned, unblest. Old hill! old hill! thou gashed and hairy Lear Yet shall the great God turn thy fate, And bring thee back into thy monarch state Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn, |