The Washers Of The Shroud
by James Russell Lowell (1819 � 1891)
Written in October
1861 (The American river is revealed,) |
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Along a riverside, I know not where,
I walked one
night in mystery of dream;
A chill creeps curdling yet
beneath my hair,
To think what chanced me by the pallid
gleam
Of a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air.
Pale fireflies pulsed within the meadow-mist
Their
halos, wavering thistledowns of light;
The loon, that
seemed to mock some goblin tryst,
Laughed; and the
echoes, huddling in affright,
Like Odin's hounds, fled
baying down the night.
Then all was silent, till
there smote my ear
A movement in the stream that checked
my breath:
Was it the slow plash of a wading deer?
But
something said, "This water is of Death!
The Sisters wash
a shroud,--ill thing to hear!"
I, looking then,
beheld the ancient Three
Known to the Greek's and to the
Northman's creed,
That sit in shadow of the mystic Tree,
Still crooning, as they weave their endless brede,
One
song: "Time was, Time is, and Time shall be."
No
wrinkled crones were they, as I had deemed,
But fair as
yesterday, to-day, to-morrow,
To mourner, lover, poet,
ever seemed;
Something too high for joy, too deep for
sorrow,
Thrilled in their tones, and from their faces
gleamed.
"Still men and nations reap as they have
strawn,"
So sang they, working at their task the while;
The fatal raiment must be cleansed ere dawn;
For Austria?
Italy? the Sea-Queen's isle?
O'er what quenched grandeur
must our shroud be drawn?
Or is it for a younger,
fairer corse,
That gathered States for children round his
knees,
That tamed the wave to be his posting-horse,
Feller of forests, linker of the seas,
Bridge-builder,
hammerer, youngest son of Thor's?
"What make we,
murmur'st thou? and what are we?
When empires must be
wound, we bring the shroud,
The time-old web of the
implacable Three:
Is it too coarse for him, the young and
proud?
Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it,--why not
he?"
"Is there no hope?" I moaned, "so strong, so
fair!
Our Fowler whose proud bird would brook erewhile
No rival's swoop in all our western air!
Gather the
ravens, then, in funeral file
For him, life's morn yet
golden in his hair?"
"Leave me not hopeless, ye
unpitying dames!
I see, half seeing. Tell me, ye who
scanned
The stars, Earth's elders, still must noblest
aims
Be traced upon oblivious ocean-sands?
Must Hesper
join the wailing ghosts of names?"
"When grass-blades
stiffen with red battle-dew
Ye deem we choose the victor
and the slain:
Say, choose we them that shall be leal and
true
To the heart's longing, the high faith of brain?
Yet there the victory lies, if ye but knew."
"Three
roots bear up Dominion: Knowledge, Will,--
These twain
are strong, but stronger yet the third,--
Obedience,--'t
is the great tap-root that still,
Knit round the rock of
Duty, is not stirred,
Though Heaven-loosed tempests spend
their utmost skill."
"Is the doom sealed for Hesper?
'T is not we
Denounce it, but the Law before all time:
The brave makes danger opportunity;
The waverer,
paltering with the chance sublime,
Dwarfs it to peril:
which shall Hesper be?"
"Hath he let vultures climb
his eagle's seat
To make Jove's bolts purveyors of their
maw?
Hath he the Many's plaudits found more sweet
Than
Wisdom? held Opinion's wind for Law?
Then let him hearken
for the doomster's feet."
"Rough are the steps,
slow-hewn in flintiest rock,
States climb to power by;
slippery those with gold
Down which they stumble to
eternal mock:
No chafferer's hand shall long the sceptre
hold,
Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell the block."
"We sing old Sagas, songs of weal and woe,
Mystic
because too cheaply understood;
Dark sayings are not
ours; men hear and know,
See Evil weak, see strength
alone in Good,
Yet hope to stem God's fire with walls of
tow."
"Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time Is,
That offers choice of glory or of gloom;
The solver makes
Time Shall Be surely his.
But hasten, Sisters! for even
now the tomb
Grates its slow hinge and calls from the
abyss."
"But not for him," I cried, "not yet for him,
Whose large horizon, westering, star by star
Wins from
the void to where on Ocean's rim
The sunset shuts the
world with golden bar,
Not yet his thews shall fail, his
eye grow dim!"
"His shall be larger manhood, saved
for those
That walk unblenching through the trial-fires;
Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes,
And he
no base-born son of craven sires,
Whose eye need blench
confronted with his foes."
"Tears may be ours, but
proud, for those who win
Death's royal purple in the
foeman's lines;
Peace, too, brings tears; and 'mid the
battle-din,
The wiser ear some text of God divines,
For the sheathed blade may rust with darker sin."
"God, give us peace! not such as lulls to sleep,
But
sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit!
And let our
Ship of State to harbor sweep,
Her ports all up, her
battle-lanterns lit,
And her leashed thunders gathering
for their leap!"
So cried I with clenched hands and
passionate pain,
Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side;
Again the loon laughed mocking, and again
The echoes
bayed far down the night and died,
While waking I
recalled my wandering brain. |
By James Russell Lowell (1819 � 1891)
Listed July 24, 2012 |
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