No More Learning

Soon we touch the wide Hereafter,
Snow-field yet untrod of men:
Shall we meet once more--and when? --
To eat Thanksgiving turkey.






BEFORE THE SNOW


Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare
Shatters the rainy wind. A myriad leaves,
Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air.
Flutter away from the old forest's eaves.

Autumn is gone: as yonder silent rill,
Slow eddying o'er thick leaf-heaps lately shed,
My spirit, as I walk, moves awed and still,
By thronging fancies wild and wistful led.

Autumn is gone: alas, how long ago
The grapes were plucked, and garnered was the grain!
How soon death settles on us, and the snow
Wraps with its white alike our graves, our gain!

Yea, autumn's gone! Yet it robs not my mood
Of that which makes moods dear,--some shoot of spring
Still sweet within me; or thoughts of yonder wood
We walked in,--memory's rare environing.

And, though they die, the seasons only take
A ruined substance. All that's best remains
In the essential vision that can make
One light for life, love, death, their joys, their pains.








III








YOUTH TO THE POET

(TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES)


Strange spell of youth for age, and age for youth,
Affinity between two forms of truth! --
As if the dawn and sunset watched each other,
Like and unlike as children of one mother
And wondering at the likeness. Ardent eyes
Of young men see the prophecy arise
Of what their lives shall be when all is told;
And, in the far-off glow of years called old,
Those other eyes look back to catch a trace
Of what was once their own unshadowed grace.
But here in our dear poet both are blended--
Ripe age begun, yet golden youth not ended;--
Even as his song the willowy scent of spring
Doth blend with autumn's tender mellowing,
And mixes praise with satire, tears with fun,
In strains that ever delicately run;
So musical and wise, page after page,
The sage a minstrel grows, the bard a sage.
The dew of youth fills yet his late-sprung flowers,
And day-break glory haunts his evening hours.
Ah, such a life prefigures its own moral:
That first "Last Leaf" is now a leaf of laurel,
Which--smiling not, but trembling at the touch--
Youth gives back to the hand that gave so much.

EVENING OF DECEMBER 3, 1879.






THE SWORD DHAM


"How shall we honor the man who creates? "
Asked the Bedouin chief, the poet Antar;--
"Who unto the truth flings open our gates,
Or fashions new thoughts from the light of a star;
Or forges with craft of his finger and brain
Some marvelous weapon we copy in vain;
Or chants to the winds a wild song that shall
wander forever undying?

"See! His reward is in envies and hates;
In lips that deny, or in stabs that may kill. "
"Nay," said the smith; "for there's one here who waits
Humbly to serve you with unmeasured skill,
Sure that no utmost devotion can fail,
Offered to _you_, nor unfriended assail
The heart of the hero and poet Antar, whose
fame is undying! "

"Speak," said the chief. Then the smith: "O Antar,
It is I who would serve you! I know, by the soul
Of the poet within you, no envy can bar
The stream of your gratitude,--once let it roll.
Listen. The lightning, your camel that slew,
_I_ caught, and wrought in this sword-blade for you;--
Sword that no foe shall encounter unhurt, or
depart from undying. "

Burst from the eyes of Antar a swift rain,--Gratitude's
glittering drops,--as he threw
One shining arm round the smith, like a chain.
Closer the man to his bosom he drew;
Thankful, caressing, with "Great is my debt.