Poems (Whitney)/Kristel's soliloquy
KRISTEL'S SOLILOQUY.
My log house stands by the river:—Not higher than the topmost swellAt the vernal flood:—but I have an attic,And over it stately poplars shiver,And lend me twenty arms ecstaticTo lift me over the surge. And well,When the roaring freshet threatens, I know,And, taking my meat and honey, goInto the leafy nook above;'Whence I watch the river, ravingUp from its yellow depths, and the broad Lagunas, islanding many a grove;And if the waters me defraudOf homestead and home, and turd my cabinInto a raft,—I do not murmurMore than a thrush, whose nest in summer,A twisted branch of ash displaces;For are there not a million places,And leaves in the wood for the minstrel free,And a million logs as well for me?
Such is my manhood's outer shell.Over many a flowery swellI follow the trail to hunter dear.The plain's long-bearded nobles rearTheir ponderous fronts, and snuff with doubtThe air my rifle scatters about.Whether at midnight or at noon,At the hour beloved of the rising moon,When the deer come forth from their shady lair,I watch by the licks, or in the dark Recesses of the wilding park.From wood and field, and flood and air,Treasures of beauty and of useMy lowliness do not refuse.The summer robe of the bison fallsIn shady softness-down my walls;The stag's coat hides mine earthen floor;His antlers, branched like a sapling oak,Are cornices for window and door.And plumes that tropic winds have strook,In tapestry of varied thought,By hands of forest maidens wrought,Come to my cabin, without strifeTo live again in a human life.
And yet I wage no needless war;—No wanton hand strikes down the wing,Of stays upon the bended plainThe bison's stately journeying.No form of lowliest grace I mar; Nor in the forest's wide domain,Nor in my garden's round, I cullAught good, or sweet; or beautiful,But all the more to dedicateTo service pure its gentle state.
True, in a corner of my hutIs a little shrine, whereon I putFresh-blooming child;'en of the wood—Forget-me-not and the solitude-Shunning linnæa. Unto the same,I consecrate.the winged. flameOf columbine, and that which stoleThe innermost secret of the sky,The water-lily's vestal soul,With the sweetness in the clover hivedSo deep. This is in memoryOf one, whose love my love outlived.And so, to steepIn memory all that I should keep, The queen magnolia there I set,And circle it with low mignonette.For I think ofttimes, altho' her sphere,Radiant and high, I come not near,Nor ever can again—that stillIf I surround her thought with love,And evermore a patient willTo watch, to strive, to wait and proveThe peace heaven offers, to the end,—Out of my pain and silent strife,Some fragrance God will take, and blendAn unknown sweetness with her life.
The prairie sways, and the river rolls,And the sun and the moon—and nothing is lostIn all the skies" unmeasured coast,Nothing too in the kingdom of souls.Broad stream, that yieldest silentlySuch largess to the noonday sky,Hear how the brooding cushat mourns Her love. We will not mourn or weep,Or lock ourselves in wintry sleep;But bide in peace heaven's large returns.All that he has and is, who gives,With whom no earth-born wish survivesTo hoard his little grief or bliss,God his great debtor surely is,And pays infinity. Who meetThe coming fate half-way, and flingTheir blessed treasures at her feet,Shall feel, through all her clamoring,Her hard eye quail; she knows 'twere vainTo empty what God brims again.