The Grave By The Lake

Where the Great Lake's sunny smiles     Dimple round its hundred isles,     And the mountain's granite ledge     Cleaves the water like a wedge,     Ringed about with smooth, gray stones,     Rest the giant's mighty bones.     Close beside, in shade and gleam,     Laughs and ripples Melvin stream;     Melvin water, mountain-born,     All fair flowers its banks adorn;     All the woodland's voices meet,     Mingling with its murmurs sweet.     Over lowlands forest-grown,     Over waters island-strown,     Over silver-sanded beach,     Leaf-locked bay and misty reach,     Melvin stream and burial-heap,     Watch and ward the mountains keep.     Who that Titan cromlech fills?     Forest-kaiser, lord o' the hills?     Knight who on the birchen tree     Carved his savage heraldry?     Priest o' the pine-wood temples dim,     Prophet, sage, or wizard grim?     Rugged type of primal man,     Grim utilitarian,     Loving woods for hunt and prowl,     Lake and hill for fish and fowl,     As the brown bear blind and dull     To the grand and beautiful:     Not for him the lesson drawn     From the mountains smit with dawn,     Star-rise, moon-rise, flowers of May,     Sunset's purple bloom of day,     Took his life no hue from thence,     Poor amid such affluence?     Haply unto hill and tree     All too near akin was he     Unto him who stands afar     Nature's marvels greatest are;     Who the mountain purple seeks     Must not climb the higher peaks.     Yet who knows in winter tramp,     Or the midnight of the camp,     What revealings faint and far,     Stealing down from moon and star,     Kindled in that human clod     Thought of destiny and God?     Stateliest forest patriarch,     Grand in robes of skin and bark,     What sepulchral mysteries,     What weird funeral-rites, were his?     What sharp wail, what drear lament,     Back scared wolf and eagle sent?     Now, whate'er he may have been,     Low he lies as other men;     On his mound the partridge drums,     There the noisy blue-jay comes;     Rank nor name nor pomp has he     In the grave's democracy.     Part thy blue lips, Northern lake!     Moss-grown rocks, your silence break!     Tell the tale, thou ancient tree!     Thou, too, slide-worn Ossipee!     Speak, and tell us how and when     Lived and died this king of men!     Wordless moans the ancient pine;     Lake and mountain give no sign;     Vain to trace this ring of stones;     Vain the search of crumbling bones     Deepest of all mysteries,     And the saddest, silence is.     Nameless, noteless, clay with clay     Mingles slowly day by day;     But somewhere, for good or ill,     That dark soul is living still;     Somewhere yet that atom's force     Moves the light-poised universe.     Strange that on his burial-sod     Harebells bloom, and golden-rod,     While the soul's dark horoscope     Holds no starry sign of hope!     Is the Unseen with sight at odds?     Nature's pity more than God's?     Thus I mused by Melvin's side,     While the summer eventide     Made the woods and inland sea     And the mountains mystery;     And the hush of earth and air     Seemed the pause before a prayer,     Prayer for him, for all who rest,     Mother Earth, upon thy breast,     Lapped on Christian turf, or hid     In rock-cave or pyramid     All who sleep, as all who live,     Well may need the prayer, "Forgive!"     Desert-smothered caravan,     Knee-deep dust that once was man,     Battle-trenches ghastly piled,     Ocean-floors with white bones tiled,     Crowded tomb and mounded sod,     Dumbly crave that prayer to God.     Oh, the generations old     Over whom no church-bells tolled,     Christless, lifting up blind eyes     To the silence of the skies!     For the innumerable dead     Is my soul disquieted.     Where be now these silent hosts?     Where the camping-ground of ghosts?     Where the spectral conscripts led     To the white tents of the dead?     What strange shore or chartless sea     Holds the awful mystery?     Then the warm sky stooped to make     Double sunset in the lake;     While above I saw with it,     Range on range, the mountains lit;     And the calm and splendor stole     Like an answer to my soul.     Hear'st thou, O of little faith,     What to thee the mountain saith,     What is whispered by the trees?     Cast on God thy care for these;     Trust Him, if thy sight be dim     Doubt for them is doubt of Him.     "Blind must be their close-shut eyes     Where like night the sunshine lies,     Fiery-linked the self-forged chain     Binding ever sin to pain,     Strong their prison-house of will,     But without He waiteth still.     "Not with hatred's undertow     Doth the Love Eternal flow;     Every chain that spirits wear     Crumbles in the breath of prayer;     And the penitent's desire     Opens every gate of fire.     "Still Thy love, O Christ arisen,     Yearns to reach these souls in prison!     Through all depths of sin and loss     Drops the plummet of Thy cross!     Never yet abyss was found     Deeper than that cross could sound!"     Therefore well may Nature keep     Equal faith with all who sleep,     Set her watch of hills around     Christian grave and heathen mound,     And to cairn and kirkyard send     Summer's flowery dividend.     Keep, O pleasant Melvin stream,     Thy sweet laugh in shade and gleam     On the Indian's grassy tomb     Swing, O flowers, your bells of bloom!     Deep below, as high above,     Sweeps the circle of God's love.     .        .        .        .        .     He paused and questioned with his eye     The hearers' verdict on his song.     A low voice asked: Is 't well to pry     Into the secrets which belong     Only to God? The life to be     Is still the unguessed mystery     Unsealed, unpierced the cloudy walls remain,     We beat with dream and wish the soundless doors in vain.     "But faith beyond our sight may go."     He said: "The gracious Fatherhood     Can only know above, below,     Eternal purposes of good.     From our free heritage of will,     The bitter springs of pain and ill     Flow only in all worlds. The perfect day     Of God is shadowless, and love is love alway."     "I know," she said, "the letter kills;     That on our arid fields of strife     And heat of clashing texts distils     The clew of spirit and of life.     But, searching still the written Word,     I fain would find, Thus saith the Lord,     A voucher for the hope I also feel     That sin can give no wound beyond love's power to heal."     "Pray," said the Man of Books, "give o'er     A theme too vast for time and place.     Go on, Sir Poet, ride once more     Your hobby at his old free pace.     But let him keep, with step discreet,     The solid earth beneath his feet.     In the great mystery which around us lies,     The wisest is a fool, the fool Heaven-helped is wise."     The Traveller said: "If songs have creeds,     Their choice of them let singers make;     But Art no other sanction needs     Than beauty for its own fair sake.     It grinds not in the mill of use,     Nor asks for leave, nor begs excuse;     It makes the flexile laws it deigns to own,     And gives its atmosphere its color and its tone.     "Confess, old friend, your austere school     Has left your fancy little chance;     You square to reason's rigid rule     The flowing outlines of romance.     With conscience keen from exercise,     And chronic fear of compromise,     You check the free play of your rhymes, to clap     A moral underneath, and spring it like a trap."     The sweet voice answered: "Better so     Than bolder flights that know no check;     Better to use the bit, than throw     The reins all loose on fancy's neck.     The liberal range of Art should be     The breadth of Christian liberty,     Restrained alone by challenge and alarm     Where its charmed footsteps tread the border land of harm.     "Beyond the poet's sweet dream lives     The eternal epic of the man.     He wisest is who only gives,     True to himself, the best he can;     Who, drifting in the winds of praise,     The inward monitor obeys;     And, with the boldness that confesses fear,     Takes in the crowded sail, and lets his conscience steer.     "Thanks for the fitting word he speaks,     Nor less for doubtful word unspoken;     For the false model that he breaks,     As for the moulded grace unbroken;     For what is missed and what remains,     For losses which are truest gains,     For reverence conscious of the Eternal eye,     And truth too fair to need the garnish of a lie."     Laughing, the Critic bowed. "I yield     The point without another word;     Who ever yet a case appealed     Where beauty's judgment had been heard?     And you, my good friend, owe to me     Your warmest thanks for such a plea,     As true withal as sweet. For my offence     Of cavil, let her words be ample recompense."     Across the sea one lighthouse star,     With crimson ray that came and went,     Revolving on its tower afar,     Looked through the doorway of the tent.     While outward, over sand-slopes wet,     The lamp flashed down its yellow jet     On the long wash of waves, with red and green     Tangles of weltering weed through the white foam-wreaths seen.     "Sing while we may, another day     May bring enough of sorrow;' thus     Our Traveller in his own sweet lay,     His Crimean camp-song, hints to us,"     The lady said. "So let it be;     Sing us a song," exclaimed all three.     She smiled: "I can but marvel at your choice     To hear our poet's words through my poor borrowed voice."     .        .        .        .        .     Her window opens to the bay,     On glistening light or misty gray,     And there at dawn and set of day     In prayer she kneels.     "Dear Lord!" she saith, "to many a borne     From wind and wave the wanderers come;     I only see the tossing foam     Of stranger keels.     "Blown out and in by summer gales,     The stately ships, with crowded sails,     And sailors leaning o'er their rails,     Before me glide;     They come, they go, but nevermore,     Spice-laden from the Indian shore,     I see his swift-winged Isidore     The waves divide.     "O Thou! with whom the night is day     And one the near and far away,     Look out on yon gray waste, and say     Where lingers he.     Alive, perchance, on some lone beach     Or thirsty isle beyond the reach     Of man, he hears the mocking speech     Of wind and sea.     "O dread and cruel deep, reveal     The secret which thy waves conceal,     And, ye wild sea-birds, hither wheel     And tell your tale.     Let winds that tossed his raven hair     A message from my lost one bear,     Some thought of me, a last fond prayer     Or dying wail!     "Come, with your dreariest truth shut out     The fears that haunt me round about;     O God! I cannot bear this doubt     That stifles breath.     The worst is better than the dread;     Give me but leave to mourn my dead     Asleep in trust and hope, instead     Of life in death!"     It might have been the evening breeze     That whispered in the garden trees,     It might have been the sound of seas     That rose and fell;     But, with her heart, if not her ear,     The old loved voice she seemed to hear     "I wait to meet thee: be of cheer,     For all is well!"     .        .        .        .        .     The sweet voice into silence went,     A silence which was almost pain     As through it rolled the long lament,     The cadence of the mournful main.     Glancing his written pages o'er,     The Reader tried his part once more;     Leaving the land of hackmatack and pine     For Tuscan valleys glad with olive and with vine