Earth and Her Praisers

The Earth is old;Six thousand winters make her heart a-cold;The sceptre slanteth from her palsied hold.She saith, "'Las me! God's word that I was 'good'Is taken back to heaven,From whence when any sound comes, I am rivenBy some sharp bolt; and now no angel wouldDescend with sweet dew-silence on my mountains,To glorify the lovely river fountainsThat gush along their side:I see--O weary change!--I see insteadThis human wrath and pride,These thrones and tombs, judicial wrong and blood,And bitter words are poured upon mine head--'O Earth! thou art a stage for tricks unholy,A church for most remorseful melancholy;Thou art so spoilt, we should forget we hadAn Eden in thee, wert thou not so sad!'Sweet children, I am old! ye, every one,Do keep me from a portion of my sun.Give praise in change for brightness!That I may shake my hills in infinitenessOf breezy laughter, as in youthful mirth,To hear Earth's sons and daughters praising Earth."

Whereupon a child beganWith spirit running up to manAs by angels' shining ladder,(May he find no cloud above!)Seeming he had ne'er been sadderAll his days than now,Sitting in the chestnut grove,With that joyous overflowOf smiling from his mouth o'er browAnd cheek and chin, as if the breezeLeaning tricksy from the treesTo part his golden hairs, had blownInto an hundred smiles that one.

"O rare, rare Earth!" he saith,"I will praise thee presently;Not to-day; I have no breath:I have hunted squirrels three--Two ran down in the furzy hollowWhere I could not see nor follow,One sits at the top of the filbert-tree,With a yellow nut and a mock at me:Presently it shall be done!When I see which way these two have run,When the mocking one at the filbert-topShall leap a-down and beside me stop,Then, rare Earth, rare Earth,Will I pause, having known thy worth,To say all good of thee!"

Next a lover,--with a dream'Neath his waking eyelids hidden,And a frequent sigh unbidden,And an idlesse all the dayBeside a wandering stream,And a silence that is madeOf a word he dares not say,--Shakes slow his pensive head:"Earth, Earth!" saith he,"If spirits, like thy roses, grewOn one stalk, and winds austereCould but only blow them near,To share each other's dew;--If, when summer rains agreeTo beautify thy hills, I knewLooking off them I might seeSome one very beauteous too,--Then Earth," saith he,"I would praise ... nay, nay--not thee!"

Will the pedant name her next?Crabbed with a crabbed textSits he in his study nook,With his elbow on a book,And with stately crossed knees,And a wrinkle deeply thridThrough his lowering brow,Caused by making proofs enowThat Plato in "Parmenides"Meant the same Spinoza did,--Or, that an hundred of the gropingLike himself, had made one Homer,Homeros being a misnomerWhat hath he to do with praiseOf Earth or aught? Whene'er the slopingSunbeams through his window dazeHis eyes off from the learned phrase,Straightway he draws close the curtain.May abstraction keep him dumb!Were his lips to ope, 't is certain"Derivatum est" would come.

Then a mourner moveth paleIn a silence full of wail,Raising not his sunken headBecause he wandered last that wayWith that one beneath the clay:Weeping not, because that one,The only one who would have said"Cease to weep, beloved!" has goneWhence returneth comfort none.The silence breaketh suddenly,--"Earth, I praise thee!" crieth he,"Thou hast a grave for also me."

Ha, a poet! know him byThe ecstasy-dilated eye,Not uncharged with tears that ranUpward from his heart of man;By the cheek, from hour to hour,Kindled bright or sunken wanWith a sense of lonely power;By the brow uplifted higherThan others, for more low decliningBy the lip which words of fireOverboiling have burned whiteWhile they gave the nations light:Ay, in every time and placeYe may know the poet's faceBy the shade or shining.

'Neath a golden cloud he stands,Spreading his impassioned hands."O God's Earth!" he saith, "the signFrom the Father-soul to mineOf all beauteous mysteries,Of all perfect imagesWhich, divine in His divine,In my human only areVery excellent and fair!Think not, Earth, that I would raiseWeary forehead in thy praise,(Weary, that I cannot goFarther from thy region low,)If were struck no richer meaningsFrom thee than thyself. The leaningOf the close trees o'er the brimOf a sunshine-haunted streamHave a sound beneath their leaves,Not of wind, not of wind,Which the poet's voice achieves:The faint mountains, heaped behind,Have a falling on their tops,Not of dew, not of dew,Which the poet's fancy drops:Viewless things his eyes can viewDriftings of his dream do lightAll the skies by day and night,And the seas that deepest rollCarry murmurs of his soul.'Earth, I praise thee! praise thou me!God perfecteth his creationWith this recipient poet-passion,And makes the beautiful to be.I praise thee, O beloved sign,From the God-soul unto mine!Praise me, that I cast on theeThe cunning sweet interpretation,The help and glory and dilationOf mine immortality!"

There was silence. None did dareTo use again the spoken airOf that far-charming voice, untilA Christian resting on the hill,With a thoughtful smile subdued(Seeming learnt in solitude)Which a weeper might have viewedWithout new tears, did softly say,And looked up unto heaven alwayWhile he praised the Earth--"O Earth,I count the praises thou art worth,By thy waves that move aloud,By thy hills against the cloud,By thy valleys warm and green,By the copses' elms between,By their birds which, like a spriteScattered by a strong delightInto fragments musical,Stir and sing in every bush;By thy silver founts that fall,As if to entice the stars at nightTo thine heart; by grass and rush,And little weeds the children pull,Mistook for flowers!--Oh, beautifulArt thou, Earth, albeit worseThan in heaven is called good!Good to us, that we may knowMeekly from thy good to go;While the holy, crying BloodPuts its music kind and low'Twixt such ears as are not dull,And thine ancient curse!

"Praised be the mosses softIn thy forest pathways oft,And the thorns, which make us thinkOf the thornless river-brinkWhere the ransomed tread:Praised be thy sunny gleams,And the storm, that worketh dreamsOf calm unfinished:Praised be thine active days,And thy night-time's solemn need,When in God's dear book we readNo night shall be therein:Praised be thy dwellings warmBy household faggot's cheerful blaze,Where, to hear of pardoned sin,Pauseth oft the merry din,Save the babe's upon the armWho croweth to the crackling wood:Yea, and, better understood,Praised be thy dwellings cold,Hid beneath the churchyard mould,Where the bodies of the saintsSeparate from earthly taintsLie asleep, in blessing bound,Waiting for the trumpet's soundTo free them into blessing;--noneWeeping more beneath the sun,Though dangerous words of human loveBe graven very near, above.

"Earth, we Christians praise thee thus,Even for the change that comesWith a grief from thee to us:For thy cradles and thy tombs,For the pleasant corn and wineAnd summer-heat; and also forThe frost upon the sycamoreAnd hail upon the vine!"