Poems. Howells William Dean

      I stood on the brink in manhood,

      And it came to my weary brain,

      And my heart, so dull and heavy

      After the years of pain,–

      That every hollowest bubble

      Which over my life had passed

      Still into its deeper current

      Some heavenly gleam had cast;

      That, however I mocked it gayly,

      And guessed at its hollowness,

      Still shone, with each bursting bubble,

      One star in my soul the less.

      One after one they left us;

      The sweet birds out of our breasts

      Went flying away in the morning:

      Will they come again to their nests?

      Will they come again at nightfall,

      With God’s breath in their song?

      Noon is fierce with the heats of summer,

      And summer days are long!

      O my Life, with thy upward liftings,

      Thy downward-striking roots,

      Ripening out of thy tender blossoms

      But hard and bitter fruits!–

      In thy boughs there is no shelter

      For the birds to seek again.

      The desolate nest is broken

      And torn with storms and rain!

      Yesterday, while I moved with the languid crowd on the Riva,

      Musing with idle eyes on the wide lagoons and the islands,

      And on the dim-seen seaward glimmering sails in the distance,

      Where the azure haze, like a vision of Indian-Summer,

      Haunted the dreamy sky of the soft Venetian December,–

      While I moved unwilled in the mellow warmth of the weather,

      Breathing air that was full of Old World sadness and beauty

      Into my thought came this story of free, wild life in Ohio,

      When the land was new, and yet by the Beautiful River

      Dwelt the pioneers and Indian hunters and boatmen.

      Pealed from the campanili, responding from island to island,

      Bells of that ancient faith whose incense and solemn devotions

      Rise from a hundred shrines in the broken heart of the city;

      But in my revery heard I only the passionate voices

      Of the people that sang in the virgin heart of the forest.

      Autumn was in the land, and the trees were golden and crimson,

      And from the luminous boughs of the over-elms and the maples

      Tender and beautiful fell the light in the worshippers’ faces,

      Softer than lights that stream through the saints on the windows of churches,

      While the balsamy breath of the hemlocks and pines by the river

      Stole on the winds through the woodland aisles like the breath of a censer.

      Loud the people sang old camp-meeting anthems that quaver

      Quaintly yet from lips forgetful of lips that have kissed them;

      Loud they sang the songs of the Sacrifice and Atonement,

      And of the end of the world, and the infinite terrors of Judgment:–

      Songs of ineffable sorrow, and wailing, compassionate warning

      Unto the generations that hardened their hearts to their Savior;

      Songs of exultant rapture for them that confessed him and followed,

      Bearing his burden and yoke, enduring and entering with him

      Into the rest of his saints, and the endless reward of the blessed.

      Loud the people sang; but through the sound of their singing

      Broke inarticulate cries and moans and sobs from the mourners,

      As the glory of God, that smote the apostle of Tarsus,

      Smote them and strewed them to earth like leaves in the breath of the whirlwind.

      Hushed at last was the sound of the lamentation and singing;

      But from the distant hill the throbbing drum of the pheasant

      Shook with its heavy pulses the depths of the listening silence,

      When from his place arose a white-haired exhorter, and faltered:

      “Brethren and sisters in Jesus! the Lord hath heard our petitions,

      So that the hearts of his servants are awed and melted within them,–

      Even the hearts of the wicked are touched by his infinite mercy.

      All my days in this vale of tears the Lord hath been with me,

      He hath been good to me, he hath granted me trials and patience;

      But this hour hath crowned my knowledge of him and his goodness.

      Truly, but that it is well this day for me to be with you,

      Now might I say to the Lord,–‘I know thee, my God, in all fulness;

      Now let thy servant depart in peace to the rest thou hast promised!’”

      Faltered and ceased. And now the wild and jubilant music

      Of the singing burst from the solemn profound of the silence,

      Surged in triumph, and fell, and ebbed again into silence.

      Then from the group of the preachers arose the greatest among them,–

      He whose days were given in youth to the praise of the Savior,

      He whose lips seemed touched, like the prophet’s of old, from the altar,

      So that his words were flame, and burned to the hearts of his hearers,

      Quickening the dead among them, reviving the cold and the doubting.

      There he charged them pray, and rest not from prayer while a sinner

      In the sound of their voices denied the Friend of the sinner:

      “Pray till the night shall fall,–till the stars are faint in the morning,–

      Yea, till the sun himself be faint in that glory and brightness,

      Faint in the light which shall dawn in mercy for penitent sinners.”

      Kneeling, he led them in prayer; and the quick and sobbing responses

      Spake how their souls were moved with the might and the grace of the Spirit.

      Then while the converts recounted how God had chastened and saved them,–

      Children, whose golden locks yet shone with the lingering effulgence

      Of the touches of Him who blessed little children forever;

      Old men, whose yearning eyes were dimmed with the far-streaming brightness

      Seen through the opening gates in the heart of the heavenly city,–

      Stealthily

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