BETA

Without and Within.

Once spake a gray-hair’d poet :  A noble thing and
good1
To strike a heat adown the chain of our great brother-
hood ;2
To send the blazing torch of truth from eager hand to
hand,3
To bid thought’s swift electric wire vibrate from land to
land.4
To nurse a generous seed that in the mind hath taken
root5
Then waft it forth on kindlier soil to come to nobler
fruit,6
By fire-lit hearth, in love-lit heart, a heritage to claim ; 7
This have men call’d an idle breath, the vanity of
Fame !8
But as to champing steed the noise of battle from
afar9
That bids him paw the ground, and neigh to trumpet-
sound, Ha, ha,10
Is Fame to poet-soul, and mine hath shared among the
rest ;11
Yet was the praise of earliest days the sweetest and the
best !12
And it is with me now as when with keen, ambitious
breast,13
At school I struggles with my mates, and ever foremost
press’d ;14
Yet knew not what I won—the worth or sweetness of
my prize—15
Till I took it home, and read them both within my
mother’s eyes !16
My mother! She to whom I read my earliest rude
essays,17
Who pinn’d my verses in her gown, and on her household
ways,18
As she kept moving, to herself she said them ever soft ;19
I had a true-love afterwards that read them not so
oft !20
And He, the kind old bachelor whose heart had been for
one21
Too much, and so he shared it out with all beneath the
sun—22
I see his broad and honest brow, the sparkle in his
eye,23
(A steadfast fire undimm’d by age,) I hear his slow
reply.24
The patientest of anglers he, and I the quietest25
Of dreamy boys, true comrades we,—he chose me from
the rest ;26
Content to saunter by his side in silence through the
day,27
Through coppice and by stream, the while my thoughts
were far away,28
Perhaps with Crusoe in his isle ; our noonday meal we
took,29
Beneath an old gray-lichen’d rock that beetled o’er the
brook ;30
Then were our tongues set free at last !  not learning
much nor wit31
Went with our simple far, but talk as well that sea-
son’d it.32
I never hear a chafing brook, nor see the smooth stones
lie33
Beneath it golden-brown, or mark the mailed dragon-
fly34
Shoot past, but something o’er my soul a summer feel-
ing sends,35
That brings my good old kinsman back, and all my boy-
hood’s friends.36
One still is left—the friend that fought my battles out
at school ;37
Now would he fight them with the world, if ever it
should cool38
To verse of mine—yes, inch by inch contending : not a
line39
He reads, but takes them all on trust, content that they
are mine.40
Now have I made me store of friends the kindred of my
mind ;41
They give unto me of their wealth, I pay them back in
kind ;42
The world needs music at its feasts, it bids me welcome
free ;43
It loves me for the songs I sing, but these loved my
songs for me !44
And so to such as these my heart flies back, a thing set
free ;45
It craveth more than doth the mind, less cold equality ;46
Love is the one true leveller below—he bringeth down,47
He raiseth up, he sets on all his chosen brows a crown :48
For he hath gold enough, enough of sweetness in his
tone49
To lend an echo unto Fame far deeper than its own ;50
Its hollow cymbal-sound is gone, and hush’d its selfish
din,51
When praising from Without is met by loving from
Within.52
D. G.