Poems (Whitney)/The ceyba and the taguet
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THE CEYBA AND THE YAGUEY.
Know you the land?
With its cestus of summer waves, and its ocean
Of young, soft air, with a vernal motion
All through its golden tides? which caresses
And busies itself about you, and blesses
All that it bathes with life ineffable,
A breathing of infinite love, as well
As of courage and youth? That joy of the sun
Where heaven in all its beauty is won
To the arms of the new-made earth—do you know it?
That land of hope—that land of the poet?
With its cestus of summer waves, and its ocean
Of young, soft air, with a vernal motion
All through its golden tides? which caresses
And busies itself about you, and blesses
All that it bathes with life ineffable,
A breathing of infinite love, as well
As of courage and youth? That joy of the sun
Where heaven in all its beauty is won
To the arms of the new-made earth—do you know it?
That land of hope—that land of the poet?
There in that isle, as you shall hear,
The Ceyba grows—of godlike cheer;
A sad and singular history
Is that of the beautiful Ceyba-tree,
And what I recount of one alone,
Is true of a thousand as of one.
The Ceyba grows—of godlike cheer;
A sad and singular history
Is that of the beautiful Ceyba-tree,
And what I recount of one alone,
Is true of a thousand as of one.
Grand and alone the giant stood,
The Ceyba-tree of royal mood.
It stood so great that the careless Montero
Of the sunny Partido de Sumidero,
Cheering his mules with song and whistle,
Winding about those mountains that bristle
With cactus outré, and pine, and yucca,
And soften as well with twining bejuca,
And the delicate weft of the tamarind
Afloat on the sunny tropic wind,
Seeing afar in the freshening skies,
This beacon of silent centuries,
Touched his cap in the way of his nation,
Making his morning salutation.
The giant, I said, of royal heart,
Kept with his sky and his earth apart.
Truly, it mattered not if beneath
The laurel upwafted proud, full breath,
And the spiked aloe's wondrous bloom
Enriched the warm, deep under gloom,—
Far and forgetful the whispering Jove
Swayed in the mighty Joy above!
The cedar dwarfed in his ancient face,
The queenly Palms, from their azure dais,
Looked upward unto the Ceyba—tree;
Chestnut and mango dreamily
Heaved their soft billows in mid air,
The cypress companioned with them there,
But over them, an under sky
Of shifting emerald, airily
The Ceyba's coronal tossed and swung.
The Ceyba-tree of royal mood.
It stood so great that the careless Montero
Of the sunny Partido de Sumidero,
Cheering his mules with song and whistle,
Winding about those mountains that bristle
With cactus outré, and pine, and yucca,
And soften as well with twining bejuca,
And the delicate weft of the tamarind
Afloat on the sunny tropic wind,
Seeing afar in the freshening skies,
This beacon of silent centuries,
Touched his cap in the way of his nation,
Making his morning salutation.
The giant, I said, of royal heart,
Kept with his sky and his earth apart.
Truly, it mattered not if beneath
The laurel upwafted proud, full breath,
And the spiked aloe's wondrous bloom
Enriched the warm, deep under gloom,—
Far and forgetful the whispering Jove
Swayed in the mighty Joy above!
The cedar dwarfed in his ancient face,
The queenly Palms, from their azure dais,
Looked upward unto the Ceyba—tree;
Chestnut and mango dreamily
Heaved their soft billows in mid air,
The cypress companioned with them there,
But over them, an under sky
Of shifting emerald, airily
The Ceyba's coronal tossed and swung.
Proud songs the lofty minstrel sung!
Awful it was when the southern blast
From the sea, drove inland gray and fast,
And heavy with its terrible rain
From the chaos of the heavens and main,
(After the weary, weary drouth,
The gush of the burning-hearted south!)
To hear the inspired monarch Tree
Roar its giant hymn of Liberty:
As if it saw red morn beneath
The dim horizon's misty wreath,
Coming the dank old gloom to fuse,
And dripping with its crimson dews,
And to the world sang o'er and o'er
"Her fiery drops earth counts no more!
The hearts you shut from hope and light,
And Beauty and the Infinite,
Into the air, into the day,
Will burst their wild, indignant way!"
Then in the calm, the light, the glory,
Most tender was its rhymed story;
When distant and faint the unweary sea
Rolled landward its vast harmony,
And the Ceyba listened by stars and moon,
And softly answered it rune for rune.
Awful it was when the southern blast
From the sea, drove inland gray and fast,
And heavy with its terrible rain
From the chaos of the heavens and main,
(After the weary, weary drouth,
The gush of the burning-hearted south!)
To hear the inspired monarch Tree
Roar its giant hymn of Liberty:
As if it saw red morn beneath
The dim horizon's misty wreath,
Coming the dank old gloom to fuse,
And dripping with its crimson dews,
And to the world sang o'er and o'er
"Her fiery drops earth counts no more!
The hearts you shut from hope and light,
And Beauty and the Infinite,
Into the air, into the day,
Will burst their wild, indignant way!"
Then in the calm, the light, the glory,
Most tender was its rhymed story;
When distant and faint the unweary sea
Rolled landward its vast harmony,
And the Ceyba listened by stars and moon,
And softly answered it rune for rune.
But alas for the stately Tree! indeed
Alas for it! a little seed
Bedded itself in the cloven bark,
Nor did the generous Ceyba mark
What life it gave, what strength went forth
Into the thing of little worth!
Alas for it! a little seed
Bedded itself in the cloven bark,
Nor did the generous Ceyba mark
What life it gave, what strength went forth
Into the thing of little worth!
Soon under the leaves might you espy,
Gliding and creeping silently
Forward from its buried root,
A wavering, young and snakelike shoot,
That little by little, day after day,
Twists and winds its quiet way,
'Mid shrinking leaves and buds that pine,—
And so, with many a hideous twine
Round tender twig, and bough, and branch,
Till one by one they bare and blanch,
While downward it drops an hundred feet,
And as many arms coil up and meet
And clasp the giant, neck and limb,
And strain him in their embrace with grim
And deadly love; and here and there
Under the sick'ning foliage, peer
Keen heads like serpents' heads, intent,
And new, strange hues flop insolent
From bough to bough, till one might see
How ill it fared with the noble tree!
How, breathless and with eager strain,
Out of its falling mantle, in vain
It lifted its hundred wasted hands
To the sun and the winds, and the journeying bands
Of sky-immortals; 'las! the dead moon shone
On the peering serpents' heads alone,
Or flecked it with many a ghastly fleck—
The sun glared in on the spectral wreck
Unmindful, and fierce, and wonderingly:
And then the life-blood drearily
Curdled within its veins and stopt;
While over it the Yaguey dropt
Its mocking wreaths of gaudy hue,
Flaunting triumphant in the blue,
Sweet breath of heaven, and all was done;
And so of a thousand as of one.
Gliding and creeping silently
Forward from its buried root,
A wavering, young and snakelike shoot,
That little by little, day after day,
Twists and winds its quiet way,
'Mid shrinking leaves and buds that pine,—
And so, with many a hideous twine
Round tender twig, and bough, and branch,
Till one by one they bare and blanch,
While downward it drops an hundred feet,
And as many arms coil up and meet
And clasp the giant, neck and limb,
And strain him in their embrace with grim
And deadly love; and here and there
Under the sick'ning foliage, peer
Keen heads like serpents' heads, intent,
And new, strange hues flop insolent
From bough to bough, till one might see
How ill it fared with the noble tree!
How, breathless and with eager strain,
Out of its falling mantle, in vain
It lifted its hundred wasted hands
To the sun and the winds, and the journeying bands
Of sky-immortals; 'las! the dead moon shone
On the peering serpents' heads alone,
Or flecked it with many a ghastly fleck—
The sun glared in on the spectral wreck
Unmindful, and fierce, and wonderingly:
And then the life-blood drearily
Curdled within its veins and stopt;
While over it the Yaguey dropt
Its mocking wreaths of gaudy hue,
Flaunting triumphant in the blue,
Sweet breath of heaven, and all was done;
And so of a thousand as of one.