Part 24 (1/2)

It may not be; I strive in vain To break my slender household chain,-- Three pairs of little clasping hands, One voice, that whispers, not commands.

Even while my spirit flies away, My gentle jailers murmur nay; All shapes of elemental wrath They raise along my threatened path; The storm grows black, the waters rise, The mountains mingle with the skies, The mad tornado scoops the ground, The midnight robber prowls around,-- Thus, kissing every limb they tie, They draw a knot and heave a sigh, Till, fairly netted in the toil, My feet are rooted to the soil.

Only the soaring wish is free!-- And that, dear Governor, flies to thee!

PITTSFIELD, 1851.

TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND

THE seed that wasteful autumn cast To waver on its stormy blast, Long o'er the wintry desert tost, Its living germ has never lost.

Dropped by the weary tempest's wing, It feels the kindling ray of spring, And, starting from its dream of death, Pours on the air its perfumed breath.

So, parted by the rolling flood, The love that springs from common blood Needs but a single sunlit hour Of mingling smiles to bud and flower; Unharmed its slumbering life has flown, From sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, from zone to zone, Where summer's falling roses stain The tepid waves of Pontchartrain, Or where the lichen creeps below Katahdin's wreaths of whirling snow.

Though fiery sun and stiffening cold May change the fair ancestral mould, No winter chills, no summer drains The life-blood drawn from English veins, Still bearing wheresoe'er it flows The love that with its fountain rose, Unchanged by s.p.a.ce, unwronged by time, From age to age, from clime to clime!

1852.

AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH

COME, spread your wings, as I spread mine, And leave the crowded hall For where the eyes of twilight s.h.i.+ne O'er evening's western wall.

These are the pleasant Berks.h.i.+re hills, Each with its leafy crown; Hark! from their sides a thousand rills Come singing sweetly down.

A thousand rills; they leap and s.h.i.+ne, Strained through the shadowy nooks, Till, clasped in many a gathering twine, They swell a hundred brooks.

A hundred brooks, and still they run With ripple, shade, and gleam, Till, cl.u.s.tering all their braids in one, They flow a single stream.

A bracelet spun from mountain mist, A silvery sash unwound, With ox-bow curve and sinuous twist It writhes to reach the Sound.

This is my bark,--a pygmy's s.h.i.+p; Beneath a child it rolls; Fear not,--one body makes it dip, But not a thousand souls.

Float we the gra.s.sy banks between; Without an oar we glide; The meadows, drest in living green, Unroll on either side.

Come, take the book we love so well, And let us read and dream We see whate'er its pages tell, And sail an English stream.

Up to the clouds the lark has sprung, Still trilling as he flies; The linnet sings as there he sung; The unseen cuckoo cries,

And daisies strew the banks along, And yellow kingcups s.h.i.+ne, With cowslips, and a primrose throng, And humble celandine.

Ah foolish dream! when Nature nursed Her daughter in the West, The fount was drained that opened first; She bared her other breast.

On the young planet's orient sh.o.r.e Her morning hand she tried; Then turned the broad medallion o'er And stamped the sunset side.

Take what she gives, her pine's tall stem, Her elm with hanging spray; She wears her mountain diadem Still in her own proud way.