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The South-wind brings
Life, sunshine and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire;
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.
I see my empty house,
I see my trees repair their boughs;
And he, the wondrous child,
Whose silver warble wild
Outvalued every pulsing sound
Within the ear's cerulean round,--
The hyacinthine boy  , for whom
Morn well might break and April bloom,
The gracious boy, who did adorn
The world whereinto he was born,
And by his countenance repay
The favor of the loving Day,--
Has disappeared from the Day's eye;
Far and wide she cannot find him;
My hopes pursue, they cannot bind
him.
Returned this day, the
South-wind searches,
And finds young pines and budding birches;
But finds
not the budding man;
Nature, who
lost, cannot remake him;
Fate let
him fall, Fate can't retake him;
Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain.
And whither now, my truant wise and
sweet,
0, whither tend thy
feet?
I had the right, few days
ago,
Thy steps to watch, thy place
to know:
How have I forfeited the
right?
Hast thou forgot me in a new
delight?
I hearken for thy household
cheer,
O eloquent child!
Whose voice, an equal messenger,
Conveyed thy meaning mild.
What though the pains and joys
Whereof it spoke were toys
Fitting his age and ken,
Yet fairest dames and bearded men,
Who heard the sweet request,
So gentle, wise and grave,
Bended with joy to his behest
And let the world's affairs go by,
A while to share his cordial game,
Or mend his wicker wagon-frame,
Still plotting how their hungry ear
That winsome voice again might hear;
For his lips could well pronounce
Words that were persuasions.
Gentlest guardians marked serene
His early hope, his liberal mien;
Took counsel from his guiding eyes
To make this wisdom earthly wise.
Ah, vainly do these eyes recall
The school-march, each day's festival,
When every morn my bosom glowed
To watch the convoy on the road;
The babe in willow wagon closed,
With rolling eyes and face composed;
With children forward and behind,
Like Cupids studiously inclined;
And he the chieftain paced beside,
The centre of the troop allied,
With sunny face of sweet repose,
To guard the babe from fancied foes.
The little captain innocent
Took the eye with him as he went;
Each village senior paused to scan
And speak the lovely caravan.
From the window I look out
To mark thy beautiful parade,
Stately marching in cap and coat
To same tune by fairies played;--
A music heard by thee alone
To works as noble led thee on.
Now Love and Pride, alas! in vain,
Up and down their glances strain.
The painted sled stands where it
stood;
The kennel by the corded
wood;
His gathered sticks to stanch
the wall
Of the snow-tower, when
snow should fall;
The ominous hole
he dug in the sand,
And childhood's
castles built or planned;
His daily
haunts I well discern,--
The
poultry-yard, the shed, the barn,--
And every inch of garden ground
Paced by the blessed feet around,
From the roadside to the brook
Whereinto he loved to look.
Step the meek fowls where erst they ranged;
The wintry garden lies unchanged;
The brook into the stream runs on;
But the deep-eyed boy is gone.
On that shaded day,
Dark with more clouds than tempests are,
When thou didst yield thy innocent
breath
In birdlike heavings unto
death,
Night came, and Nature had
not thee;
I said, "We are mates in
misery."
The morrow dawned with
needless glow;
Each snowbird
chirped, each fowl must crow;
Each
tramper started; but the feet
Of the
most beautiful and sweet
Of human
youth had left the hill
And
garden,--they were bound and still.
There's not a sparrow or a wren,
There's not a blade of autumn grain,
Which the four seasons do not tend
And tides of life and increase lend;
And every chick of every bird,
And weed and rock-moss is preferred.
O ostrich-like forgetfulness!
O loss of larger in the less!
Was there no star that could be sent,
No watcher in the firmament,
No angel from the countless host
That loiters round the crystal
coast,
Could stoop to heal that only
child,
Nature's sweet marvel
undefiled,
And keep the blossom of
the earth,
Which all her harvests
were nor worth?
Not mine,--I never
called thee mine,
But Nature's
heir,--if I repine,
And seeing
rashly torn and moved
Not what I
made, but what I loved,
Grow early
old with grief that thou
Must to the
wastes of Nature go,--
'Tis because
a general hope
Was quenched, and all
must doubt and grope.
For flattering
planets seemed to say
This child
should ills of ages stay,
By
wondrous tongue, and guided pen,
Bring the flown Muses back to men.
Perchance not he but Nature ailed,
The world and not the infant failed.
It was not ripe yet to sustain
A genius of so fine a strain,
Who gazed upon the sun and moon
As if he came unto his own,
And, pregnant with his grander thought,
Brought the old order into doubt.
His beauty once their beauty tried;
They could not feed him, and he
died,
And wandered backward as in
scorn,
To wait an aeon to be
born.
Ill day which made this beauty
waste,
Plight broken, this high face
defaced!
Some went and came about
the dead;
And some in books of
solace read;
Same to their friends
the tidings say;
Some went to write,
some went to pray;
One tarried here,
there hurried one;
But their heart
abode with none.
Covetous death
bereaved us all,
To aggrandize one
funeral.
The eager fate which
carried thee
Took the largest part
of me:
For this losing is true
dying;
This is lordly man's
down-lying,
This his slow but sum
reclining,
Star by star his world
resigning.
O child of paradise,
Boy who made dear his father's home,
In whose deep eyes
Men read the welfare of the times to come,
I am too much bereft.
The world dishonored thou hast left.
O truth's and nature's costly lie!
O trusted broken prophecy!
O richest fortune sourly crossed!
Born for the future, to the future lost!
The deep Heart answered, "Weepest
thou?
Worthier cause for passion
wild
If I had not taken the
child.
And deemest thou as those who
pore,
With aged eyes, short way
before,--
Think'st Beauty vanished
from the coast
Of matter, and thy
darling lost?
Taught he not
thee--the man of eld,
Whose eyes
within his eyes beheld
Heaven's
numerous hierarchy span
The mystic
gulf from God to man?
To be alone
wilt thou begin
When worlds of
lovers hem thee in?
Tomorrow, when
the masks shall fall
That dizen
Nature's carnival,
The pure shall
see by their own will,
Which
oveflowing Love shall fill,
'Tis
not within the force of fate
The
fate-conjoined to separate.
But
thou, my votary, weepest thou?
I
gave thee sight--where is it now?
I
taught thy heart beyond the reach
Of
ritual, bible, or of speech;
Wrote
in thy mind's transparent table,
As
far as the incommunicable;
Taught
thee each private sign to raise
Lit
by the supersolar blaze.
Past
utterance, and past belief,
And past
the blasphemy of grief
The mysteries
of Nature's heart;
And though no
Muse can these impart,
Throb thine
with Nature's throbbing breast
And
all is clear from east to west.
"I came to thee as to a friend;
Dearest, to thee I did not send
Tutors, but a joyful eye,
Innocence that matched the sky,
Lovely locks, a form of wonder,
Laughter rich as woodland thunder,
That thou might'st entertain apart
The richest flowering of all art:
And, as the great all-loving Day
Through smallest chambers takes its way,
That thou might'st break thy daily
bread
With prophet, savior and
head;
That thou might'st cherish for
thine own
The riches of sweet Mary's
Son,
Boy-Rabbi, Israel's
paragon.
And thoughtest thou such
guest
Would in thy hall take up his
rest?
Would rushing life forget her
laws,
Fate's glowing revolution
pause?
High omens ask diviner
guess;
Not to be conned to
tediousness
And know my higher gifts
unbind
The zone that girds the
incarnate mind.
When the scanty
shores are full
With Thought's
perilous, whirling pool;
When frail
Nature can no more,
Then the Spirit
strikes the hour:
My servant Death,
with solving rite,
Pours finite into
infinite.
Wilt thou freeze love's
tidal flow,
Whose streams through
Nature circling go?
Nail the wild
star to its track
On the
half-climbed zodiac?
Light is light
which radiates,
Blood is blood which
circulates,
Life is life which
generates,
And many-seeming life is
one,--
Wilt thou transfix and make
it none?
Its onward force too
starkly pent
In figure, bone, and
lineament?
Wilt thou, uncalled,
interrogate,
Talker! the unreplying
Fate?
Nor see the genius of the
whole
Ascendant in the private
soul,
Beckon it when to go and
come,
Self-announced its hour of
doom?
Fair the soul's recess and
shrine,
Magic-built to last a
season;
Masterpiece of love
benign;
Fairer that expansive
reason
Whose omen 'tis, and
sign.
Wilt thou not ope thy heart to
know
What rainbows teach, and
sunsets show?
Verdict which
accumulates
From lengthening scroll
of human fates,
Voice of earth to
earth returned,
Prayers of saints
that inly burned,--
Saying, What
is excellent,
As God lives,
is permanent;
Hearts are
dust, hearts' loves remain;
Heart's love will meet thee again.
Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye
Up to his style, and manners of the
sky.
Not of adamant and gold
Built he heaven stark and cold;
No, but a nest of bending reeds,
Flowering grass and scented weeds;
Or like a traveller's fleeing tent,
Or bow above the tempest bent;
Built of tears and sacred flames,
And virtue reaching to its aims;
Built of furtherance and pursuing,
Not of spent deeds, but of doing.
Silent rushes the swift Lord
Through ruined systems still
restored,
Broadsowing, bleak and
void to bless,
Plants with worlds
the wilderness;
Waters with tears of
ancient sorrow
Apples of Eden ripe
tomorrow.
House and tenant go to
ground,
Lost in God, in Godhead
found."
1842-4
[1846]
 Criticism on "Threnody"
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