Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlorn Visions of golden treasuries of corn-
Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heart That manfully shall take thy part,
And tend thee,
And defend thee,
With antique sinew and with modern art.
SUNNYSIDE, GEORGIA, August, 1874.
"O TRADE! O Trade! would thou wert dead! The Time needs heart-'tis tired of head : We're all for love," the violins said. "Of what avail the rigorous tale
Of bill for coin and box for bale?
Grant thee, O Trade! thine uttermost hope: Level red gold with blue sky-slope,
And base it deep as devils grope :
When all's done, what hast thou won
Of the only sweet that's under the sun?
Ay, canst thou buy a single sigh
Of true love's least, least ecstasy?"
Then, with a bridegroom's heart-beats trembling, All the mightier strings assembling Ranged them on the violins' side
As when the bridegroom leads the bride, And, heart in voice, together cried:
"Yea, what avail the endless tale
Of gain by cunning and plus by sale? Look up the land, look down the land The poor, the poor, the poor, they stand Wedged by the pressing of Trade's hand Against an inward-opening door That pressure tightens evermore : They sigh a monstrous foul-air sigh For the outside leagues of liberty,
Where Art, sweet lark, translates the sky Into a heavenly melody.
'Each day, all day' (these poor folks say), 'In the same old year-long, drear-long way,
We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns, We sieve mine-meshes under the hills,
And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills,
To relieve, O God, what manner of ills?— The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die; And so do we, and the world's a sty; Hush, fellow-swine: why nuzzle and cry? Swinehood hath no remedy
Say many men, and hasten by,
Clamping the nose and blinking the eye. But who said once, in the lordly tone, Man shall not live by bread alone
But all that cometh from the Throne? Hath God said so?
But Trade saith No:
And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say Go: There's plenty that can, if you can't: we know. Move out, if you think you 're underpaid.
The poor are prolific; we're not afraid;
Thereat this passionate protesting Meekly changed, and softened till It sank to sad requesting
And suggesting sadder still:
"And oh, if men might some time see
How piteous-false the poor decree That trade no more than trade must be ! Does business mean, Die, you-live, I? Then Trade is trade' but sings a lie : 'Tis only war grown miserly.
If business is battle, name it so : War-crimes less will shame it so, And widows less will blame it so. Alas, for the poor to have some part In yon sweet living lands of Art,
Makes problem not for head, but heart.
Vainly might Plato's brain revolve it : Plainly the heart of a child could solve it."
And then, as when from words that seem but rude
We pass to silent pain that sits abrood
Back in our heart's great dark and solitude, So sank the strings to gentle throbbing Of long chords change-marked with sobbing- Motherly sobbing, not distinctlier heard
Than half wing-openings of the sleeping bird, Some dream of danger to her young hath stirred. Then stirring and demurring ceased, and lo! Every least ripple of the strings' song-flow Died to a level with each level bow
And made a great chord tranquil-surfaced so, As a brook beneath his curving bank doth go To linger in the sacred dark and green Where many boughs the still pool overlean And many leaves make shadow with their sheen. But presently
A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly
Upon the bosom of that harmony, And sailed and sailed incessantly, As if a petal from a wild-rose blown Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone And boatwise dropped o' the convex side And floated down the glassy tide
And clarified and glorified
The solemn spaces where the shadows bide. From the warm concave of that fluted note Somewhat, half song, half odor, forth did float, As if a rose might somehow be a throat : "When Nature from her far-off glen
Flutes her soft messages to men,
The flute can say them o'er again;
Yea, Nature, singing sweet and lone, Breathes through life's strident polyphone The flute-voice in the world of tone.
Sweet friends,
Man's love ascends
To finer and diviner ends
Than man's mere thought e'er comprehends.
For I, e'en I,
As here I lie,
A petal on a harmony,
Demand of Science whence and why
Man's tender pain, man's inward cry, When he doth gaze on earth and sky? I am not overbold:
Full powers from Nature manifold. I speak for each no-tonguéd tree That, spring by spring, doth nobler be, And dumbly and most wistfully His mighty prayerful arms outspreads Above men's oft-unheeding heads, And his big blessing downward sheds. I speak for all-shaped blooms and leaves, Lichens on stones and moss on caves, Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves; Broad-fronded ferns and keen-leaved canes, And briery mazes bounding lanes,
And marsh-plants, thirsty-cupped for rains, And milky stems and sugary veins ; For every long-armed woman-vine That round a piteous tree doth twine ; For passionate odors, and divine Pistils, and petals crystalline ; All purities of shady springs,
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