To the end of the trail / Richard Hovey [electronic text]

SEAWARD

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS

"Il tremolar della marina."

— DANTE.

THE tide is in the marshes. Far away In Nova Scotia's woods they follow me, Marshes of distant Massachusetts Bay, Dear marshes, where the dead once loved to be! I see them lying yellow in the sun, And hear the mighty tremor of the sea Beyond the dunes where blue cloud shadows run,

I know that there the tide is coming in, Secret and slow, for in my heart I feel The silent swelling of a stress akin; And in my vision, lo! blue glimpses steal Across the yellow marsh-grass, where the flood, Filling the empty channels, lifts the keel Of one lone catboat bedded in the mud.

The tide is in the marshes. Kingscroft fades; It is not Minas there across the lea; But I am standing under pilgrim shades Far off where Scituate lapses to the sea. And he, my elder brother in the muse, The poet of the Charles and Italy, Stands by my side, Song's gentle, shy recluse.

The hermit thrush of singers, few might draw So near his ambush in the solitude As to be witness of the holy awe And passionate sweetness of his singing mood Not oft he sang, and then in ways apart, Where foppish ignorance might not intrude To mar the joy of his sufficing art.

Only for love of song he sang, unbid And unexpectant of responsive praise; But they that loved and sought him where he hid Forbearing to profane his templed ways,

Went marveling if that clear voice they heard Pass thrilling through the hushed religious maze Were of a spirit singing or a bird.

Alas, he is not here, he will not sing; The air is empty of him evermore. Alone I watch the slow kelp-gatherers bring Their dories full of sea-moss to the shore. No gentle eyes look out to sea with mine, No gentle lips are uttering quaint lore, No hand is on my shoulder for a sign.

Far, far, so far, the crying of the surf! Still, still, so still, the water in the grass! Here on the knoll the crickets in the turf, And one bold squirrel barking, seek, alas, To bring the swarming summer back to me. In vain — my heart is on the salt morass Below, that stretches to the sunlit sea.

Interminable, not to be divined, The ocean's solemn distances recede; A gospel of glad color to the mind, But for the soul a voice of sterner creed. The sadness of unfathomable things Calls from the waste and makes the heart give heed With answering dirges, as a seashell sings.

Mother of infinite loss! Mother bereft! Thou of the shaken hair! Far-questing Sea! Sea of the lapsing wail of waves! O left Of many lovers! Lone, lamenting Sea! Desolate, proud, disheveled, lost sublime! Unquelled and reckless! Mad, despairing Sea! Wail, for I wait — wail, ancient dirge of Time!

No more, no more that brow to greet, no more! Mourn, bitter heart! mourn, fool of Fate! Again Thy lover leaves thee; from thy pleading shore Swept far beyond the caverns of the rain, No phantom of him lingers on the air. Thy foamy fingers reach for his — in vain! In vain thy salt breath searches for his hair!

Mourn gently, tranquil marshes, mourn with me! Mourn, if acceptance so serene can mourn! Grieve, marshes, tho' your noonday melody Of color thrill through sorrow like a horn Blown far in Elfland! Mourn, free-wandering dunes. For he has left you of his voice forlorn, Who sang your slopes full of an hundred Junes.

O viking Death, what hast thou done with him? Sea-wolf of Fate, marauder of the shore! Storm reveler, to what carousal grim Hast thou compelled him? Hark, through the Sea's roar

Heroic laughter mocking us afar! There will no answer come for evermore, Though for his sake Song beacon to a star.

Mourn, Muse beyond the sea! Ausonian Muse! Mourn, where thy vinelands watch the day depart! Mourn for him, where thy sunsets interfuse, Who loved thy beauty with no alien heart And sang it in his not all alien line! Muse of the passionate thought and austere art!O Dante's Muse! lament his son and thine.

And thou, divine one of this western beach! A double loss has left thee desolate; Two rooms are vacant in thy House of Speech, Two ghosts have vanished through the open gate. The Attic spirit, epicure of light, The Doric heart, strong, simple, passionate, Thy priest of Beauty and thy priest of Right.

Last of the elder choir save one whose smile Is gentler, for its memories, they rest. Mourn, goddess, come apart and mourn awhile! Come with thy sons, lithe Song-Queen of the West, — The poet Friend of Poets, the great throng Of seekers on the long elusive quest, And the lone voice of Arizonian song.

Nor absent they, thy latest-born, O Muse,My young companions in Art's wildwood ways; She whose swift verse speaks words that smite and bruise With scarlet suddenness of flaming phrase, Virginia's hawk of Song; and he who sings Alike his people's homely rustic lays, And his fine spirit's high imaginings,

Far-stretching Indiana's melodist; Quaint, humorous, full of quirks and wanton whims, Full throated with imagination kissed; With these two pilgrims from auroral streams. The Greek revealer of Canadian skies, And thy close darling, voyager of dreams, Carman, the sweetest, strangest voice that cries.

And thou, friend of my heart, in fireside bonds Near to the dead, not with the poet's bay Brow-bound but eminent with kindred fronds, Paint us some picture of the summer day For his memorial — the distant dune, The marshes stretching palpitant away And blue sea fervid with the stress of noon.

For we were of the few who knew his face, Nor only heard the rumor of his fame; This house beside the sea the sacred place Where first with thee to clasp his hand I came —

Art's knight of courtesy, eager to commend, Who to my youth accorded the dear name Of poet, and the dearer name of friend.

Ah, that last bottle of old Gascon wine We drank together! I remember too How carefully he placed it where the shine Of the warm sun might pierce it through and through, — Wise in all gentle, hospitable arts — And there was sunshine in it when we drew The cork and drank, and sunshine in our hearts.

O mourners by the sea, who loved him most! I watch you where you move, I see you all; Unmarked I glide among you like a ghost, And on the portico, in room and hall, Lay visionary fingers on your hair. You do not feel their unsubstantial fall Nor hear my silent tread, but I am there.

I would my thought had but the weakest throat, To set the air a-vibrate with a word. Alas! dumb, ineffectual, remote, I murmur, but my solace is not heard; Nor, could I reach you, would your grief abate. What sorrow ever was with speech deterred? What power has Song against the hand of Fate? …

Not all in vain! For with the will to serve, Myself am served, at least. A secure calm Soars in my soul with wings that will not swerve, And on my brow I feel a ministering palm. Even in the effort for another's peace I have achieved mine own. I hear a psalm Of angels, and the grim forebodings cease.

I see things as they are, nor longer yield To truce and parley with the doubts of sense. My certainty of vision goes a-field, Wide-ranging, fearless, into the immense; And finds no terror there, no ghost nor ghoul, Not to be dazzled back to impotence, Confronted with the indomitable soul.

What goblin frights us? Are we children, then, To start at shadows? Things fantastic slay The imperishable spirit in whose ken Their only birth is? Blaze one solar ray Across the grisly darkness that appals, And where the gloom was murkiest, the bright Day Laughs with a light of blosmy coronals.

Stretch wide, O marshes, in your golden joy! Stretch ample, marshes, in serene delight! Proclaiming faith past tempest to destroy, With silent confidence of conscious might!

Glad of the blue sky, knowing nor wind nor rain Can do your large indifference despite, Nor lightning mar your tolerant disdain!

The fanfare of the trumpets of the sea Assaults the air with jubilant foray; The intolerable exigence of glee Shouts to the sun and leaps in radiant spray; The laughter of the breakers on the shore Shakes like the mirth of Titans heard at play, With thunders of tumultuous uproar.

Playmate of terrors! Intimate of Doom! Fellow of Fate and Death! Exultant Sea! Thou strong companion of the Sun, make room! Let me make one with you, rough comrade Sea! Sea of the boisterous sport of wind and spray! Sea of the lion mirth! Sonorous Sea! I hear thy shout, I know what thou wouldst say.

Dauntless, triumphant, reckless of alarms, O Queen that laughest Time and Fear to scorn! Death, like a bridegroom, tosses in thine arms. The rapture of your fellowship is borne Like music on the wind. I hear the blare, The calling of the undesisting horn, And tremors as of trumpets on the air.

Sea-Captain of whose keels the Sea is fain, Death, Master of a thousand ships, each prow That sets against the thunders of the main Is lyric with thy mirth. I know thee now, O Death, I shout back to thy hearty hail, Thou of the great heart and cavernous brow, Strong Seaman at whose look the north winds quail.

Poet, thou hast adventured in the roar Of mighty seas with one that never failed To make the havens of the further shore. Beyond that vaster Ocean thou hast sailed What old immortal world of beauty lies! What land where Light for matter has prevailed! What strange Atlantid dream of Paradise!

Down what dim bank of violets did he come, The mild historian of the Sudbury Inn, Welcoming thee to that long-wished-for home? What talk of comrades old didst thou begin? What dear inquiry lingered on his tongue Of the Sicilian, ere he led thee in To the eternal company of Song?

There thy co-laborers and high compeers Hailed thee as courtly hosts some noble guest, —Poe, disengloomed with the celestial years, Calm Bryant, Emerson of the antique zest

And modern vision, Lowell all a-bloom At last, unwintered of his mind's unrest, And Whitman, with the old superb aplomb.

Not far from these Lanier, deplored so oft From Georgian live-oaks to Acadian firs, Walks with his friend as once at Cedarcroft. And many more I see of speech diverse; From whom a band aloof and separate, Landor and Meleager in converse And lonely Collins for thy greeting wait.

But who is this that from the mightier shades Emerges, seeing whose sacred laureate hair Thou startest forward trembling through the glades, Advancing upturned palms of filial prayer? Long hast thou served him; now, of lineament Not stern but strenuous still, thy pious care He comes to guerdon. Art thou not content?

Forbear, O Muse, to sing his deeper bliss,What tenderer meetings, what more secret joys! Lift not the veil of heavenly privacies! Suffice it that nought unfulfilled alloys The pure gold of the rapture of his rest, Save that some linger where the jarring noise Of earth afflicts, whom living he caressed.

His feet are in thy courts, O Lord; his waysAre in the City of the Living God. Beside the eternal sources of the days He dwells, his thoughts with timeless lightings shod; His hours are exaltations and desires, The soul itself its only period And life unmeasured save as it aspires.

Time, like a wind, blows through the lyric leaves Above his head, and from the shaken boughs Æonian music falls; but he receives Its endless changes in alert repose, Nor drifts unconscious as a dead leaf blown On with the wind and senseless that it blows, But hears the chords like armies marching on.

About his path the tall swift angels are, Whose motion is like music but more sweet; The centuries for him their gates unbar; He hears the stars their Glorias repeat; And in high moments when the fervid soul Burns white with love, lo! on his gaze replete The Vision of the Godhead shall unroll —

Trine within trine, inextricably One, Distinct, innumerable, inseparate, And never ending what was ne'er begun,

Within Himself his Freedom and his Fate, All dreams, all harmonies, all Forms of light In his Infinity intrinsecate, — Until the soul no more can bear the sight.

Oh, secret, taciturn, disdainful Death! Knowing all this, why hast thou held thy peace? Master of Silence, thou wilt waste no breath On weaklings, nor to stiffen nerveless knees Deny strong men the conquest of one qualm; — And they, thy dauntless comrades, are at ease And need no speech and greet thee calm for calm.

Cast them adrift in wastes of ageless Night, Or bid them follow into Hell, they dare; So are they worthy of their thrones of light, O that great, tranquil rapture they shall share! That life compact of adamantine fire! My soul goes out across the eastern air To that far country with a wild desire! …

But still the marshes haunt me; still my thought Returns upon their silence, there to brood Till the significance of earth is brought Back to my heart, and in a sturdier moodI turn my eyes toward the distance dim, And in the purple far infinitude Watch the white ships sink under the sea-rim;

Some bound for Flemish ports or Genovese, Some for Bermuda bound, or Baltimore; Others, perchance, for further Orient seas, Sumatra and the straits of Singapore, Or antique cities of remote Cathay, Or past Gibraltar and the Libyan shore Through Bab-el mandeb eastward to Bombay;

And one shall signal flaming Teneriffe, And the Great Captive's ocean-prison speak, Then on beyond the demon-haunted cliff, By Madagascar's palms and Mozambique. Till in some sudden tropic dawn afar The Sultan sees the colors at her peak Salute the minarets of Zanzibar.

KINGSCROFT, Windsor, Nova Scotia, September, 1892.