Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (308 page)

The Pious Editor’s Creed

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)

I DU believe in Freedom’s cause,
 
Ez fur away ez Payris is;
I love to see her stick her claws
 
In them infarnal Phayrisees;
It’s wal enough agin a king
  
5
 
To dror resolves an’ triggers, —
But libbaty’s a kind o’ thing
 
Thet don’t agree with niggers.

I du believe the people want
 
A tax on teas an’ coffees,
  
10
Thet nothin’ aint extravygunt, —
 
Purvidin’ I’m in office;
Fer I her loved my country sence
 
My eye-teeth filled their sockets,
An’ Uncle Sam I reverence,
  
15
 
Partic’larly his pockets.

I du believe in
any
plan
 
O’ levyin’ the taxes,
Ez long ez, like a lumberman,
 
I git jest wut I axes;
  
20
I go free-trade thru thick an’ thin,
 
Because it kind o’ rouses
The folks to vote, — an’ keeps us in
 
Our quiet custom-houses.

I du believe it’s wise an’ good
  
25
 
To sen’ out furrin missions,
Thet is, on sartin understood
 
An’ orthydox conditions; —
I mean nine thousan’ dolls. per ann.,
 
Nine thousan’ more fer outfit,
  
30
An’ me to recommend a man
 
The place ‘ould jest about fit.

I du believe in special ways
 
O’ prayin’ an’ convartin’;
The bread comes back in many days,
  
35
 
An’ buttered, tu, fer sartin;
I mean in preyin’ till one busts
 
On wut the party chooses,
An’ in convartin’ public trusts
 
To very privit uses.
  
40

I du believe hard coin the stuff
 
Fer ‘lectioneers to spout on;
The people’s ollers soft enough
 
To make hard money out on;
Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his,
  
45
 
An’ gives a good-sized junk to all, —
I don’t care
how
hard money is,
 
Ez long ez mine’s paid punctooal.

I du believe with all my soul
 
In the gret Press’s freedom,
  
50
To pint the people to the goal
 
An’ in the traces lead ‘em;
Palsied the arm thet forges yokes
 
At my fat contracts squintin’,
An’ withered be the nose thet pokes
  
55
 
Inter the gov’ment printin’!

I du believe thet I should give
 
Wut’s his’n unto Cæsar,
Fer it’s by him I move an’ live,
 
Frum him my bread an’ cheese air;
  
60
I du believe thet all o’ me
 
Doth bear his superscription, —
Will, conscience, honor, honesty,
 
An’ things o’ thet description.

I du believe in prayer an’ praise
  
65
 
To him thet hez the grantin’
O’ jobs, — in every thin’ thet pays,
 
But most of all in CANTIN’;
This doth my cup with marcies fill,
 
This lays all thought o’ sin to rest,
  
70
I
don’t
believe in princerple,
 
But oh, I
du
in interest.

I du believe in bein’ this
 
Or thet, ez it may happen
One way or ‘t other hendiest is
  
75
 
To ketch the people nappin’;
It aint by princerples nor men
 
My preudunt course is steadied, —
I scent wich pays the best, an’ then
 
Go into it baldheaded.
  
80

I du believe thet holdin’ slaves
 
Comes nat’ral to a Presidunt,
Let ‘lone the rowdedow it saves
 
To hev a wal-broke precedunt;
Fer any office, small or gret,
  
85
 
I couldn’t ax with no face,
‘uthout I’d ben, thru dry an’ wet,
 
Th’ unrizzest kind o’ doughface.

I du believe wutever trash
 
‘ll keep the people in blindness,
  
90
Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash
 
Right inter brotherly kindness,
Thet bombshells, grape, an’ powder ‘n’ ball
 
Air good-will’s strongest magnets,
Thet peace, to make it stick at all,
  
95
 
Must be druv in with bagnets.

In short, I firmly du believe
 
In Humbug generally,
Fer it’s a thing thet I perceive
 
To hev a solid vally;
  
100
This heth my faithful shepherd ben,
 
In pasturs sweet heth led me,
An’ this ‘ll keep the people green
 
To feed ez they hev fed me.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

The Courtin’

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)

GOD makes sech nights, all white an’ still
 
Fur ‘z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an’ snow on field an’ hill,
 
All silence an’ all glisten.

Zekle crep’ up quite unbeknown
  
5
 
An’ peeked in thru’ the winder,
An’ there sot Huldy all alone,
 
‘ith no one nigh to hender.

A fireplace filled the room’s one side
 
With half a cord o’ wood in —
10
There war n’t no stoves (tell comfort died)
 
To bake ye to a puddin’.

The wa’nut logs shot sparkles out
 
Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An’ leetle flames danced all about
  
15
 
The chiny on the dresser.

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
 
An’ in amongst ’em rusted
The ole queen’s-arm the gran’ther Young
 
Fetched back f’om Concord busted.
  
20

The very room, coz she was in,
 
Seemed warm f’om floor to ceilin’,
An’ she looked full ez rosy agin
 
Ez the apples she was peelin’.

’Twas kin’ o’ kingdom-come to look
  
25
 
On sech a blessed cretur,
A dogrose blushin’ to a brook
 
Ain’t modester nor sweeter.

He was six foot o’ man, A I,
 
Clear grit an’ human natur’,
  
30
None couldn’t quicker pitch a ton
 
Nor dror a furrer straighter.

He’d sparked it with full twenty gals,
 
Hed squired ‘em, danced ‘em, druv ‘em,
Fust this one, an’ then thet, by spells —
35
 
All is, he couldn’t love ‘em.

But long o’ her his veins ‘ould run
 
All crinkly like curled maple,
The side she breshed felt full o’ sun
 
Ez a south slope in Ap’il.
  
40

She thought no v’ice hed sech a swing
 
Ez hisn in the choir;
My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,
 
She
knowed
the Lord was nigher.

An’ she’d blush scarlit, right in prayer,
  
45
 
When her new meetin’-bunnet
Felt somehow thru’ its crown a pair
 
O’ blue eyes sot upun it.

Thet night, I tell ye, she looked
some!
 
She seemed to ‘ve gut a new soul,
  
50
For she felt sartin-sure he’d come,
 
Down to her very shoe-sole.

She heered a foot, an’ knowed it tu,
 
A-raspin’ on the scraper, —
All ways to once her feelins flew
  
55
 
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.

He kin’ o’ l’itered on the mat,
 
Some doubtfle o’ the sekle,
His heart kep’ goin’ pity-pat,
 
But hern went pity Zekle.
  
60

An’ yit she gin her cheer a jerk
 
Ez though she wished him furder,
An’ on her apples kep’ to work,
 
Parin’ away like murder.

‘You want to see my Pa, I s’pose?’
  
65
 
‘Wal … no … I come dasignin” —
‘To see my Ma? She’s sprinklin’ clo’es
 
Agin to-morror’s i’nin’.’

To say why gals acts so or so,
 
Or don’t, ‘ould be persumin’;
  
70
Mebby to mean
yes
an’ say
no
 
Comes nateral to women.

He stood a spell on one foot fust,
 
Then stood a spell on t’other,
An’ on which one he felt the wust
  
75
 
He couldn’t ha’ told ye nuther.

Says he, ‘I’d better call agin;’
 
Says she, ‘Think likely, Mister:’
Thet last word pricked him like a pin,
 
An’ … Wal, he up an’ kist her.
  
80

When Ma bimeby upon ’em slips,
 
Huldy sot pale ez ashes,
All kin’ o’ smily roun’ the lips
 
An’ teary roun’ the lashes.

For she was jes’ the quiet kind
  
85
 
Whose naturs never vary,
Like streams that keep a summer mind
 
Snowhid in Jenooary.

The blood clost roun’ her heart felt glued
 
Too tight for all expressin’,
  
90
Tell mother see how metters stood,
 
An’ gin ’em both her blessin’.

Then her red come back like the tide
 
Down to the Bay o’ Fundy,
An’ all I know is they was cried
  
95
 
In meetin’ come nex’ Sunday.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration

July 21, 1865

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)

I

 
WEAK-WINGED is song,
Nor aims at that clear-ethered height
Whither the brave deed climbs for light:
 
We seem to do them wrong,
Bringing our robin’s-leaf to deck their hearse
  
5
Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse,
Our trivial song to honor those who come
With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum,
And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire,
Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire:
  
10
 
Yet sometimes feathered words are strong,
A gracious memory to buoy up and save
From Lethe’s dreamless ooze, the common grave
 
Of the unventurous throng.

II

To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back
  
15
 
Her wisest Scholars, those who understood
The deeper teaching of her mystic tome,
 
And offered their fresh lives to make it good:
   
No lore of Greece or Rome,
No science peddling with the names of things,
  
20
Or reading stars to find inglorious fates,
   
Can lift our life with wings
Far from Death’s idle gulf that for the many waits,
   
And lengthen out our dates
With that clear fame whose memory sings
  
25
In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates:
Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all!
   
Not such the trumpet-call
   
Of thy diviner mood,
   
That could thy sons entice
  
30
From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest
Of those half-virtues which the world calls best,
   
Into War’s tumult rude;
   
But rather far that stern device
The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood
  
35
 
In the dim, unventured wood,
 
The VERITAS that lurks beneath
 
The letter’s unprolific sheath,
 
Life of whate’er makes life worth living,
Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food,
  
40
 
One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving.

III

Many loved Truth, and lavished life’s best oil
 
Amid the dust of books to find her,
Content at last, for guerdon of their toil,
 
With the cast mantle she hath left behind her.
  
45
 
Many in sad faith sought for her,
 
Many with crossed hands sighed for her;
 
But these, our brothers, fought for her,
 
At life’s dear peril wrought for her,
 
So loved her that they died for her,
  
50
 
Tasting the raptured fleetness
 
Of her divine completeness:
 
Their higher instinct knew
Those love her best who to themselves are true,
And what they dare to dream of, dare to do;
  
55
 
They followed her and found her
 
Where all may hope to find,
Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind,
But beautiful, with danger’s sweetness round her.
 
Where faith made whole with deed
  
60
 
Breathes its awakening breath
 
Into the lifeless creed,
 
They saw her plumed and mailed,
 
With sweet, stern face unveiled,
 
And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death.
  
65

IV

Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides
 
Into the silent hollow of the past;
 
What is there that abides
 
To make the next age better for the last?
 
Is earth too poor to give us
  
70
 
Something to live for here that shall outlive us?
 
Some more substantial boon
Than such as flows and ebbs with Fortune’s fickle moon?
 
The little that we see
 
From doubt is never free;
  
75
 
The little that we do
 
Is but half-nobly true;
 
With our laborious hiving
What men call treasure, and the gods call dross,
 
Life seems a jest of Fate’s contriving,
  
80
 
Only secure in every one’s conniving,
A long account of nothings paid with loss,
Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires,
 
After our little hour of strut and rave,
With all our pasteboard passions and desires,
  
85
Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires,
 
Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave.
 
But stay! no age was e’er degenerate,
 
Unless men held it at too cheap a rate,
 
For in our likeness still we shape our fate.
  
90
 
Ah, there is something here
 
Unfathomed by the cynic’s sneer,
 
Something that gives our feeble light
 
A high immunity from Night,
 
Something that leaps life’s narrow bars
  
95
To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven;
 
A seed of sunshine that can leaven
 
Our earthly dullness with the beams of stars,
   
And glorify our clay
 
With light from fountains elder than the Day;
  
100
 
A conscience more divine than we,
 
A gladness fed with secret tears,
 
A vexing, forward-reaching sense
 
Of some more noble permanence;
   
A light across the sea,
  
105
 
Which haunts the soul and will not let it be,
Still beaconing from the heights of undegenerate years.

V

   
Whither leads the path
   
To ampler fates that leads?
   
Not down through flowery meads,
  
110
   
To reap an aftermath
 
Of youth’s vainglorious weeds,
 
But up the steep, amid the wrath
 
And shock of deadly-hostile creeds,
 
Where the world’s best hope and stay
  
115
By battle’s flashes gropes a desperate way,
And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds.
 
Peace hath her not ignoble wreath,
 
Ere yet the sharp, decisive word
Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword
  
120
 
Dreams in its easeful sheath;
But some day the live coal behind the thought,
 
Whether from Baäl’s stone obscene,
 
Or from the shrine serene
 
Of God’s pure altar brought,
  
125
Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and pen
Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught,
And, helpless in the fiery passion caught,
Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men:
Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed
  
130
Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued,
And cries reproachful: ‘Was it, then, my praise,
And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth;
I claim of thee the promise of thy youth;
Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase,
  
135
The victim of thy genius, not its mate! ‘
 
Life may be given in many ways,
 
And loyalty to Truth be sealed
As bravely in the closet as the field,
 
So bountiful is Fate;
  
140
 
But then to stand beside her,
 
When craven churls deride her,
To front a lie in arms and not to yield,
 
This shows, methinks, God’s plan
 
And measure of a stalwart man,
  
145
 
Limbed like the old heroic breeds,
 
Who stands self-poised on manhood’s solid earth,
 
Not forced to frame excuses for his birth,
Fed from within with all the strength he needs.

VI

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief,
  
150
 
Whom late the Nation he had led,
 
With ashes on her head,
Wept with the passion of an angry grief:
Forgive me, if from present things I turn
To speak what in my heart will beat and burn,
  
155
And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn.
 
Nature, they say, doth dote,
 
And cannot make a man
 
Save on some worn-out plan,
 
Repeating us by rote:
  
160
For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw,
 
And choosing sweet clay from the breast
 
Of the unexhausted West,
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
  
165
 
How beautiful to see
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead;
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be,
 
Not lured by any cheat of birth,
  
170
 
But by his clear-grained human worth,
And brave old wisdom of sincerity!
 
They knew that outward grace is dust;
 
They could not choose but trust
In that sure-footed mind’s unfaltering skill,
  
175
 
And supple-tempered will
That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust.
 
His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind,
 
Thrusting to thin air o’er our cloudy bars,
 
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind;
  
180
 
Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined,
 
Fruitful and friendly for all human kind,
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars.
   
Nothing of Europe here,
Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still,
  
185
 
Ere any names of Serf and Peer
 
Could Nature’s equal scheme deface
 
And thwart her genial will;
 
Here was a type of the true elder race,
And one of Plutarch’s men talked with us face to face.
  
190
 
I praise him not; it were too late;
And some innative weakness there must be
In him who condescends to victory
Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait,
 
Safe in himself as in a fate.
  
195
   
So always firmly he:
   
He knew to bide his time,
   
And can his fame abide,
Still patient in his simple faith sublime,
   
Till the wise years decide.
  
200
 
Great captains, with their guns and drums,
 
Disturb our judgment for the hour,
   
But at last silence comes;
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower,
 
Our children shall behold his fame.
  
205
 
The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
 
New birth of our new soil, the first American.

VII

Long as man’s hope insatiate can discern
 
Or only guess some more inspiring goal
  
210
 
Outside of Self, enduring as the pole,
 
Along whose course the flying axles burn
 
Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth’s manlier brood;
 
Long as below we cannot find
 
The meed that stills the inexorable mind;
  
215
 
So long this faith to some ideal Good,
 
Under whatever mortal names it masks,
 
Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood
That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks,
 
Feeling its challenged pulses leap,
  
220
 
While others skulk in subterfuges cheap,
And, set in Danger’s van, has all the boon it asks,
 
Shall win man’s praise and woman’s love,
 
Shall be a wisdom that we set above
All other skills and gifts to culture dear,
  
225
 
A virtue round whose forehead we inwreathe
 
Laurels that with a living passion breathe
When other crowns grow, while we twine them, sear.
 
What brings us thronging these high rites to pay,
And seal these hours the noblest of our year,
  
230
 
Save that our brothers found this better way?