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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE WINTER HOUR by ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON

First Line: OF ALL THE HOURS OF DAY OR NIGHT
Last Line: BOOK, PICTURE, MUSIC, FRIEND, AND FLOWER.
Subject(s): WINTER;
I

OF all the hours of day or night
Be mine the winter candle-light,
When Day's usurpers of Love's throne --
Fame, Pride, and tyrant Care -- are flown,
And hearts are letters of hid desire
Yielding their secrets at the fire.
Now beauty in a woman's face
Glows with a sympathetic grace,
And friend draws closer unto friend,
Like travelers near a journey's end;
In casual talk some common hope
Finds fresher wing and farther scope;
The eye has language fit to speak
Thoughts that by day 't were vain to seek
Out of their silence; and the hand
Grasps with a comrade's sure demand.
Pile high the winter's cheer and higher, --
The world is saved, not lost, by fire!

HEARTH-SONG

WHEN November's night comes down
With a dark and sudden frown,
Like belated traveler chill
Hurrying o'er the tawny hill, --
Higher, higher
Heap the pine-cones in a pyre!
Where's a better friend than fire?

Song's but solace for a day;
Wine's a traitor not to trust;
Love's a kiss and then away;
Time's a peddler deals in dust.
Higher, higher
Pile the driftwood in a pyre!
Where's a firmer friend than fire?

Knowledge was but born to-night;
Wisdom's to be born to-morrow;
One more log -- and banish sorrow,
One more branch -- the world is bright.
Higher, higher
Crown with balsam-boughs the pyre!
Where's an older friend than fire?

II

O SLLENT hour that sacred is
To our sincerest reveries! --
When peering Fancy fondly frames
Swift visions in the oak-leaved flames;
When Whim has magic to command
Largess and lore from every land,
And Memory, miser-like, once more
Counts over all her hoarded store.
Now phantom moments come again
In a long and lingering train,
As not content to be forgot --
(O Death! when I remember not
Such moments, may my current run,
Alph-like, to thy oblivion!):
The summer bedtime, when the sky --
The boy's first wonder -- gathers nigh,
And cows are lowing at the bars,
And fireflies mock the early stars
That seem to hang just out of reach --
Like a bright thought that lacks of speech;
The wistful twilight's tender fall,
When to the trundle comes the call
Of fluting robins, mingling sweet
With voices down the village street;
The drowsy silence, pierced with fear
If evil-omened owl draw near,
Quaking with presage of the night;
The soft surrender when, from sight
Hid like a goddess in a cloud,
Comes furtive Sleep, with charm endowed
To waft the willing child away
Far from the margin of the day,
Till chanticleer with roystering blare
Of reveille proclaims the glare.
Remember? -- how can one forget
(Since Memory's but Affection's debt)
Those faery nights that hold the far,
Soft rhythm of the low guitar,
When not more sweetly zephyr blows
And not more gently Afton flows
Than the dear mother's voice, to ease
The hurts of day with brook and breeze,
To soothing chords that haunt the strings
Like shadows of the song she sings!
And as the music's lullaby
Locks down at last the sleepy eye,
Green visions of a distant hill
The fancy of the singer fill,
While spreads Potomac's pausing stream,
And moonlight sets her heart adream
Of that old time when love was made
With valentine and serenade.

Now, too, come bedtimes when the stair
Was never climbed alone. -- Ah, where,
Beyond the midnight and the dawn,
Has now that other footstep gone?
Does sound or echo more reveal
When thirty winters may not steal
That still-returning tread, -- that voice,
That made the timid child rejoice
Against the terrors of the wind, --
That tender tone that smoothed the mind?
Great heart of pity! it was then
God seemed a father, denizen
Of His own world, not chained to feet
Of some far, awful judgment-seat.
Then was revealed the reverent soul
Whom creed nor doubt could from the goal
Of goodness swerve; who need not bend
To be of each just cause the friend.
Of whose small purse and simple prayer
The neediest had the largest share;
Beloved of child, and poor, and slave,
Nor yet more lovable than brave;
Whom place could not allure, nor pelf, --
To all men generous save himself;
Whose passion Freedom was -- with no
Heat-lightning rage devoid of blow,
But as a bridegroom might defend
His chosen, to the furious end.

Still other moments come apace,
Each with fond, familiar face:
The pleasures of an inland boy
To whom great Nature was a toy
For which all others were forsook --
A spirit blithesome as a brook
Whose song in ripples crystalline
Doth flow soft silences between;
The dormant soul's slow wakenings
To dimly-apprehended things;
The sudden vision in the night
As by a conflagration's light;
The daily miracle of breath;
The awe of battle and of death;
The tears of grief at Sumter's gun,
The tears of joy when war was done,
And all the fainting doubt that masked
As hope when news of war was asked.
And oh! that best-remembered place,
That perfect moment's melting grace, --
The look, the smile, the touch, the kiss,
The halo of self-sacrifice, --
When Nature's passion, bounteous June,
To Love's surrender added boon,
As though the heir of every age
Had come into his heritage.

THE LOST ROSE

THERE was a garden sweet and gay,
Where rarest blossoms did delay
The look that Fanny bent to find
The flower fairest to her mind,
Till, at her word, I plucked for her
A rose of York-and-Lancaster.

The red did with the white agree,
Like passion blent in purity;
And as she blushed and blushed the more,
Till she was like the bloom she bore,
I said, "Dear heart, I too prefer
The rose of York-and-Lancaster."

'T is years ago and miles away!
For oh! nor rose nor maid could stay
To freshen other Junes. And yet
How few who do not quite forget! --
Or know to which the words refer:
"Sweet rose of York-and-Lancaster."

In vain, when roses do appear
Upon the bosom of the year,
I search the tangle and the town
Among the roses of renown,
And still the answer is -- "Oh, sir,
We know no York-and-Lancaster."

But ah, my heart, it knows the truth,
And where was sown that seed of youth;
And though the world have lost the rose,
There's still one garden where it grows --
Where every June it breathes of her,
My rose of York-and-Lancaster.

III

Now call the Muses' aid to flout
The bleak storm's roaring rage without;
And bring it hail, or bring it snow,
It shall be Love's delight to show
What Fire and two defenders dare
Against the legions of the air,
Whose sharpest arrows shall not find
Cleft in the armor of the mind.
Why dread we Winter's deep distress,
His pale and frigid loneliness,
When here at hand at hand are stored, in nooks
All climes, all company, in books!
A moving tale for every mood,
Shakspere for all, -- the fount and food
Of gentle living, -- Fancy's link
'Twixt what we are and what we think, --
Fellow to stars that nightly plod
Old Space, yet kindred to the clod.
Choose now from his world's wizard play
What is frolicsome and gay;
'T was for such evening he divined
Not Juliet but Rosalind.
Put the storied sorrow down, --
Not to-night, with Jove-like frown,
Shall the mighty Tuscan throw
Fateful lightnings at his foe,
Nor Hawthorne bend his graceful course
To follow motive to its source.
No, let gladness greet the ear:
Cervantes' wit, or Chaucer's cheer,
Or Lamb's rich cordial, pure and sweet,
Where aromatic tinctures meet;
Or princely Thackeray, whose pages
Yield humor wiser than the sages;
Or, set in cherished place apart,
Poets that keep the world in heart:
Milton's massive lines that pour
Like waves upon a windward shore;
Wordsworth's refuge from the crowd --
The peace of noon-day's poised cloud;
That flaming torch a jealous line
Passed on to Keats from Beauty's shrine;
Visions of Shelley's prophet-soul,
That, seeing part, could sing the whole,
Most like a lark that mounts so high
He sees not earth but from the sky.
And of the bards who in the grime
And turmoil of our changing time
Have kept the faith of men most pure
The three whose harps shall last endure:
Browning, Knight of Song, -- so made
By Nature's royal accolade, --
Whose lines, as life-blood full and warm,
Search for the soul within the form,
And in the treasures of whose lore
Is Love, Love, ever at the core;
Tennyson, of the silver string,
Wisest of the true that sing,
And truest singer of the wise;
And he whose "stairway of surprise"
Soars to an outlook whence appear
All best things, fair, and sure, and near.

IV

UPON the wall some impress fine
Of Angelo's majestic line --
Seer or sibyl, dark with fate;
Near, and all irradiate,
Bellini's holy harmonies,
Bringing the gazer to his knees;
One group to hint from what a height
Titian with color dowers the sight;
A pageant of Carpaccio,
Flushed with an autumn sunset-glow;
Then, of Luini's pensive race,
The Columbine's alluring grace;
And, echo of an age remote,
Beato's pure and cloistered note.
And be not absent from the rest
Some later flame of beauty (blest
As a new star), lest it be said
That Art, that had its day, is dead.
Let Millet speak in melting tone --
Voicing the life that once was stone,
Ere Toil had found another dawn
Of Bethlehem at Barbizon.
Nor is it winter while Dupre
With daring sunlight leads the way
Into the woodland rich and dim;
Who love the forest, follow him;
And they who lean the ear to reach
The whispering breath of Nature's speech,
May with Daubigny wait the night
Beside a lake of lambent light
And marged darkness -- at the hour
(Soul of the evening!) when the power
Of man, that morn with empire shod,
Is shattered by a thought of God!
And ah, one more: we will not wait
For Death to let us call him great,
But, taking counsel of the heart
Stirred by his pure and perfect art,
Among the masters make a place
For Dagnan's fair Madonna's face.

A MADONNA OF DAGNAN-BOUVERET

OH, brooding thought of dread!
Oh, calm of coming grief!
Oh, mist of tears unshed
Above that shining head
That for an hour too brief
Lies on thy nurturing knee!
How shall we pity thee,
Mother of sorrows -- sorrows yet to be!

That babyhood unknown
With all of bright or fair
That lingers in our own
By every hearth has shone.
Each year that light we share
As Bethlehem saw it shine.
Be ours the comfort thine,
Mother of consolations all divine!

V

NOR be the lesser arts forgot
On which Life feeds and knows it not,
That everywhere from roof to portal
Beauty may speak of the immortal:
Forms that the fancy over-fill;
Colors that give the sense a thrill;
Soft lights that fall through opal glass
On mellow stuffs and sturdy brass;
Corners of secrecy that invite
Comfort, the handmaid of Delight;
The very breath of sculptures old
Held poised within a perfect mold;
A dainty vase of Venice make,
Fashioned for its one rose's sake --
Ay, winter's miracle of flowers
To cheat the mood and mask the hours:
Love's velvet-petaled pledge of June,
That, on the wings of Passion strewn,
Made courtly Persia conqueror
Of thrice the world she lost in war; --
Jonquils, that Tuscan sunshine hold
Within their happy hearts of gold; --
Narcissus, such as still are found
By Marathon's mountain-envied mound --
Food of the soul, well bought with bread,
As sage Hippocrates hath said.
All these perchance shall faintly yield
Odors from some Sicilian field
Where young Theocritus deep-strayed
In blooms celestial -- where his shade,
Haunting his storied Syracuse,
Finds balm for his neglected Muse.
Add wanton smilax to entwine
Your Dancing Faun or God of Wine,
And you shall summon in a band
The joys of every summer land.

VI

BUT there's a vision stirs the heart
Deeper than books or flowers or art, --
When Music, mistress of the mind,
Lender not borrower from the Wind,
Rival of Water and of Light,
Adds her enchantment to the Night.
What thoughts! what dreams! what ecstasies
When heart and fingers touch the keys!
Across what gulf of fate Love springs
To Love, if Love caress the strings!
By this mysterious amulet
One shall remember or forget;
When words and smiles and tears shall fail,
The might of Music shall prevail;
Shall move alike the wise and weak;
All dialects alike shall speak;
Outglow the rainbow to the doomed, --
Consuming all, be unconsumed;
Shall save a nation in its throes,
Luring with concord grappling foes;
Shall madden thus, yet shall be glad
(Oh, paradox!) to soothe the mad.
This rhythmic language made to reach
Beyond the reticence of speech --
Bland as the breeze of May it sighs,
Or rolls reverberant till the skies
Tremble with majesty! Not the mote
Most hid of all creation's rote
But holds some message that shall be
Transmuted into harmony.
Already, since the lisping-time
When music was but chant or chime,
What spirits have to man been lent
From God's discordless firmament! --
Beethoven, brother of the Nine,
But with a birthright more divine, --
Whose harmonies that heavenward wend
Wings to the laden spirit lend
Until, serenely mounting higher,
It melts into the starry choir;
Wagner, in whom the Passions meet
To throw themselves at Music's feet, --
Whose murmurings have charm to wring
From Love the secret of the Spring, --
And in whose clamor sounds the siege
Of heaven when Lucifer was liege.
Handel, whose aspirations seem
Like steps of gold in Jacob's dream;
Mozart, simplest of the great,
Heir of Melody's estate,
Who did blithe pipes of Pan prolong
And heighten to a seraph song.
Schumann, rare poet, with a lyre
Stringed in Imagination's fire;
And oh, that one of human strain! --
Chopin, beloved child of pain,
To whom the whole of Love was known --
Marvel, and mystery, and moan,
The joy secure, the jealous dart
Deep-ambushed in the doubting heart,
And all the perilous delight
That waits on doubt, as dawn on night.

Ah, who shall wake the charm that lies
Past what is written for the eyes
In such a scroll? The poet's need
Is that a poet's heart should read.
Happy the winter hour and fleet
When flame and waiting passion meet
In her pure fire whose chords betray
The St. Cecilia of our day!
Oh, velvet of that Saxon hand
So lately iron to command! --
Like, at the shower's sudden stop,
The softness of the clinging drop.
What tender notes the trance prolong
Of that famed rhythmic cradle-song!
How faery is her woven spell
Of minuet or tarantelle!
Who would return to earth when she
Transports us with a rhapsody!
And when in some symphonic burst
Of joy her spirit is immersed,
That path celestial fain to share,
We vow to breathe but noble air!

VII

WARMED with melody like wine,
Lighted by the friendly shine
Of the rich-replenished hearth,
Let us drink of wine and mirth
While waning evening's aftermath
Grows pleasant as a winding path
With wit's surprises and the tale
Adventurous, spreading sudden sail
For Arcady and hallowed haunts
Along the shores of old Romance:
Now shall fare the fancy forth
To pillared grottoes of the north,
Where circling waters come again
Like thoughts within a sleepless brain;
Or, coursing down a softer coast
Whose beauty is the Old World's boast,
Shall pause for words while memory's flame
Kindles at Taormina's name.

And now in shifting talk appears
Pomp of cities clad with years:
Gay or gloomy with her skies,
Gray Paris like an opal lies
Sparkling on the front of France.
Avignon doth hold a lance
In a tourney-list with Nimes.
Fair Seville basks in helpless dream
Of conquest, as in caged air
Dreams the tamed lion of his lair.
Regal Genoa still adorns
Her ancient throne; and Pisa mourns.
Now we traverse holy ground
Where three miracles are found:
One of beauty -- when with dyes
Of her own sunset Venice vies.
One of beauty and of power --
Rome, the crumbled Babel-tower
Of centuries piled on centuries --
Scant refuge from Oblivion's seas
That swept about her. And the third? --
O heart, fly homeward like a bird,
And look, from Bellosguardo's goal,
Upon a city with a soul!
Who that has climbed that heavenly height
When all the west was gold with light,
And nightingales adown the slope
To listening Love were lending hope,
Till they by vesper bells were drowned,
As though by censers filled with sound --
Who -- who would wish a worthier end
To every journey? or not blend
With those who reverently count
This their Transfiguration Mount?

LOVE IN ITALY

THEY halted at the terrace wall;
Below, the towered city lay;
The valley in the moonlight's thrall
Was silent in a swoon of May.
As hand to hand spoke one soft word
Beneath the friendly ilex-tree,
They knew not, of the flame that stirred,
What part was Love, what Italy.

They knew what makes the moon more bright
Where Beatrice and Juliet are, --
The sweeter perfume in the night,
The lovelier starlight in the star;
And more that glowing hour did prove,
Beneath the sheltering ilex-tree, --
That Italy transfigures Love,
As Love transfigures Italy.

VIII

AND thou, who art my winter hour --
Book, picture, music, friend, and flower --
If on such evening, dear, I trace
Paths far from Love's divine embrace,
Wandering till long absence grows
Into brief death -- less death's repose --
Let me be missed with love and cheer,
As miss we those of yesteryear
With whom we thought (beguiling hope!)
To stray together down Life's slope,
While Age came on like gentle rain.
They who but ceased their joyous strain --
Where may the limit to the sea
Of their bereaving silence be?
Yet sorrow not: we may prolong,
If not the singer's voice, the song.
And if beyond the glorious strife
Of this good world, I tread new life,
Reluctant, but, by Heaven's aid,
With infant instinct unafraid,
May Memory plead with thee to save
Out of my song its happier stave.
From the Dark Isthmus let not gloom
Deepen the shadows of thy room.
For me no ban of smile or jest:
Life at its full is holiest.
Let all thy days have pure employ
In the high sanity of joy;
Be then, as now, the friend of all,
Thy heart a thronged confessional,
A fount of sympathy, a store
Of jewels at an open door.

Here do I falter, love, for fear
Of sacrilege to what is dear.
Not now -- not here; some luminous time,
Some perfect place, some fortunate rhyme
May yield that sacrificial part
That poets fitly give to Art.
Ever the moment most elate
Must for a speech sufficient wait;
Only the happiest know, alas!
How soundless is the brimming glass.
But, though Love need nor praise nor oath,
And silence oft is firmer troth,
Yet know that if I come no more,
'Tis fault of sail, or sea, or shore,
Not of the pilot, -- for the heart
Sees its way homeward from the start.
If Death have bond that Love can break,
It shall be broken for thy sake.
If spirits unto mortals teach
Some rudiment of subtler speech,
My presence shall about thee stay
To prompt the word it cannot say.

So when, with late farewell and slow,
The guests into the night shall go,
Each pulse by sympathy more warm,
Forgetting the forgotten storm,
And thou alone into the blaze,
Thrilled with the best of life, shalt gaze
With hunger for the life divine,
Oh, be that blessed moment mine! --
With thee, who art my winter hour,
Book, picture, music, friend, and flower.



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