Dinah Maria Mulock Craik: Verses about Happiness

REGARD me well: I am thy love, thy love;
Thy blessing, thy delight, thy hope, thy peace:
Thy joy above all joys that break and cease
When their full waves in widest circles move:
Thy bird of comfort, thine eternal dove,
Whom thou didst send out of thy mournful breast
To flutter back and point thee to thy rest:
Thine angel, who forgets her crown star-wove
To come to thee with folded woman-hands
Pleading,--'look on me, Beatrice, who stands
Before thee; by the Triune Light divine
Undazzled, still beholds thy human face,
And is more happy in this happy place
That thou alone art hers and she is thine.'

THIS is a day the Lord hath made.'--Thus spake
The good religious heart, unstained, unworn,
Watching the golden glory of the morn.--
Since, on each happy day that came to break
Like sunlight o'er this silent life of mine,
Yea, on each beauteous morning I saw shine,
I have remembered these your words, rejoiced
And been glad in it. So, o'er many-voiced
Tumultuous harmonies of tropic seas,
Which chant an everlasting farewell grand
Between ourselves and you and the old land,
Receive this token: many words chance-sown
May oftentimes have taken root and grown,
To bear food fruit perennially, like these.

'O HEART, my heart!' she said, and heard
His mate the blackbird calling,
While through the sheen of the garden green
May rain was softly falling,--
Aye softly, softly falling.

The buttercups across the field
Made sunshine rifts of splendor:
The round snow-bud of the thorn in the wood
Peeped through its leefage tender,
As the rain came softly falling.

'O heart, my heart!' she said and smiled,
'There's not a tree of the valley,
Or a leaf I wis which the rain's soft kiss
Freshens in yonder alley,
Where the drops keep ever falling,--

'There's not a foolish flower i' the grass,
Or bird through the woodland calling,
So glad again of the coming of rain
As I of these tears now falling,--
These happy tears down falling.'

SING away, ay, sing away,
Merry little bird,
Always gayest of the gay,
Though a woodland roundelay
You ne'er sung nor heard;
Though your life from youth to age
Passes in a narrow cage.

Near the window wild birds fly,
Trees are waving round:
Fair things everywhere you spy
Through the glass pane's mystery,
Your small life's small bound:
Nothing hinders your desire
But a little gilded wire.

Like a human soul you seem
Shut in golden bars:
Placed amidst earth's sunshine-stream,
Singing to the morning beam,
Dreaming 'neath the stars:
Seeing all life's pleasures clear,--
But they never can come near.

Never! Sing, bird-poet mine,
As most poets do;--
Guessing by an instinct fine
At some happiness divine
Which they never knew.
Lonely in a prison bright
Hymning for the world's delight.

Yet, my birdie, you're content
In your tiny cage:
Not a carol thence is sent
But for happiness is meant--
Wisdom pure as sage:
Teaching, the true poet's part
Is to sing with merry heart.

So, lie down thou peevish pen,
Eyes, shake off all tears;
And my wee bird, sing again:
I'll translate your song to men
In these future years.
'Howsoe'er thy lot's assigned,
Bear it with a cheerful mind.'

O HOW beautiful is Morning!
How the sunbeams strike the daisies,
And the kingcups fill the meadow
Like a golden-shielded army
Marching to the uplands fair;--
I am going forth to battle,
And life's uplands rise before me,
And my golden shield is ready,
And I pause a moment, timing
My heart's pæan to the waters,
As with cheerful song incessant
Onwards runs the little stream;
Singing ever, onward ever,
Boldly runs the merry stream.

O how glorious is Noon-day!
With the cool large shadows lying
Underneath the giant forest,
The far hill-tops towering dimly
O'er the conquered plains below;--
I am conquering--I shall conquer
In life's battle-field impetuous:
And I lie and listen dreamy
To a double-voiced, low music,--
Tender beech-trees sheeny shiver
Mingled with the diapason
Of the strong, deep, joyful stream,
Like a man's love and a woman's;
So it runs--the happy stream!

O how grandly cometh Even,
Sitting on the mountain summit,
Purple-vestured, grave, and silent,
Watching o'er the dewy valleys,
Like a good king near his end:--
I have labored, I have governed;
Now I feel the gathering shadows
Of the night that closes all things:
And the fair earth fades before me,
And the stars leap out in heaven,
While into the infinite darkness
Solemn runs the steadfast stream--
Onward, onward, ceaseless, fearless,
Singing runs the eternal stream.

February 25th, 1851.

YOU are to be married, Mary;
This hour as I wakeful lie
In the dreamy dawn of the morning,
Your wedding hour draws nigh;
Miles off, you are rising, dressing,
Your bridemaidens gay among,
In the same old house we played in,--
You and I, when we were young.

Your bridemaids--they were our playmates:
Those known rooms, every wall,
Could speak of our childish frolics,
Loves, jealousies, great and small:
Do you mind how pansies changed we
And smiled at the word 'forget'?--
'T was a girl's romance: yet somehow
I have kept my pansy yet.

Do you mind our poems written
Together? our dreams of fame--
And of love--how we'd share all secrets
When that sweet mystery came?
It is no mystery now, Mary;
It was unveiled, year by year,
Till--this is your marriage morning;
And I rest quiet here.

I cannot call up your face, Mary,
The face of the bride to-day:
You have outgrown my knowledge,
The years have so slipped away.
I see but your girlish likeness,
Brown eyes and brown falling hair;--
God knows, I did love you dearly,
And was proud that you were fair.

Many speak my name, Mary,
While yours in home's silence lies:

The future I read in toil's guerdon,
You will read in your children's eyes:
The past--the same past with either--
Is to you a delightsome scene,
But I cannot trace it clearly
For the graves that rise between.

I am glad you are happy, Mary!
These tears, could you see them fall,
Would show, though you have forgotten,
I have remembered all.
And though my cup may be empty
While yours is all running o'er,
Heaven keep you its sweetness, Mary,
Brimming for evermore.

MY Friend wears a cheerful smile of his own,
And a musical tongue has he;
We sit and look in each other's face,
And are very good company.
A heart he has, full warm and red
As ever a heart I see;
And as long as I keep true to him,
Why, he'll keep true to me.

When the wind blows high and the snow falls fast
And we hear the wassailers' roar--
My Friend and I, with a right good-will
We bolt the chamber door:
I smile at him and he smiles at me
In a dreamy calm profound,
Till his heart leaps up in the midst of him
With a comfortable sound.

His warm breath kisses my thin gray hair
And reddens my ashen cheeks;
He knows me better than you all know,
Though never a word he speaks:--
Knows me as well as some had known
Were things--not as things be.
But hey, what matters? my Friend and I
Are capital company.

At dead of night, when the house is still,
He opens his pictures fair;
Faces that are, that used to be,
And faces that never were:
My wife sits sewing beside my hearth,
My little ones frolic wild,
Though--Lilian's married these twenty years,
And I never had a child.

But hey, what matters? When those who laugh
May weep to-morrow, and they
Who weep be as those that wept not--all
Their tears long wiped away.
I shall burn out, like you, my Friend,
With a bright warm heart and bold,
That flickers up to the last--then drops
Into quiet ashes cold.

And when you flicker on me, old Friend,
In the old man's elbow-chair,
Or--something easier still, where we
Lie down, to arise up fair
And young, and happy--why then, my Friend,
Should other friends ask of me,
Tell them I lived and loved and died
In the best of all company.

SMALL wren, mute pecking at the last red plum
Or twittering idly at the yellowing boughs
Fruit-emptied, over thy forsaken house,--
Birdie, that seems to come
Telling, we too have spent our little store,
Our summer's o'er:

Poor robin, driven in by rain-storms wild
To lie submissive under household hands
With beating heart that no love understands,
And scarèd eye, like a child
Who only knows that he is all alone
And summer's gone;

Pale leaves, sent flying wide, a frightened flock
On which the wolfish wind bursts out, and tears
Those tender forms that lived in summer airs
Till, taken at this shock,
They, like weak hearts when sudden grief sweeps by,
Whirl, drop, and die:--

All these things, earthy, of the earth--do tell
This earth's perpetual story; we belong
Unto another country, and our song
Shall be no mortal knell;
Though all the year's tale, as our years run fast,
Mourns, 'summer's past.'

O love immortal, O perpetual youth,
Whether in budding nooks it sits and sings
As hundred poets in a hundred springs,
Or, slaking passion's drouth,
In wine-press of affliction, ever goes
Heavenward, through woes:

O youth immortal--O undying love!
With these by winter fireside we'll sit down
Wearing our snows of honor like a crown;
And sing as in a grove,
Where the full nests ring out with happy cheer,
'Summer is here.'

Roll round, strange years; swift seasons, come and go;
Ye leave upon us but an outward sign;
Ye cannot touch the inward and divine,
While God alone does know;
There sealed till summers, winters, all shall cease
In His deep peace.

Therefore uprouse ye winds and howl your will;
Beat, beat, ye sobbing rains on pane and door;
Enter, slow-footed age, and thou, obscure,
Grand Angel--not of ill;
Healer of every wound, where'er thou come,
Glad, we'll go home.

Returned from the Dead-Letter Office

THANK you for your kindness,
Lady fair and wise,
Though love's famed for blindness,
Lovers--hem! for lies.
Courtship's mighty pretty,
Wedlock a sweet sight;--
Should I (from the city,
A plain man, Miss--) write,
Ere we spouse-and-wive it,
Just one honest line,
Could you e'er forgive it,
Pretty Valentine?

Honey-moon quite over,
If I less should scan
You with eye of lover
Than of mortal man?
Seeing my fair charmer
Curl hair spire on spire,
All in paper armor,
By the parlor fire;
Gown that wants a stitch in
Hid by apron fine,
Scolding in her kitchen,--
O fie, Valentine!

Should I come home surly
Vexed with fortune's frown,
Find a hurly-burly,
House turned upside down,
Servants all a-snarl, or
Cleaning steps or stair:
Breakfast still in parlor,
Dinner--anywhere:
Shall I to cold bacon
Meekly fall and dine?
No,--or I'm mistaken
Much, my Valentine.
What if we should quarrel?
--Bless you, all folks do:--
Will you take the war ill
Yet half like it too?
When I storm and jangle,
Obstinate, absurd,
Will you sit and wrangle
Just for the last word,--
Or, while poor Love, crying,
Upon tiptoe stands,
Ready plumed for flying,--
Will you smile, shake hands,
And the truth beholding,
With a kiss divine
Stop my rough mouth's scolding?--
Bless you, Valentine!

If, should times grow harder,
We have lack of pelf,
Little in the larder,
Less upon the shelf;
Will you, never tearful,
Make your old gowns do,
Mend my stockings, cheerful,
And pay visits few?
Crave nor gift nor donor,
Old days ne'er regret,
Seek no friend save Honor,
Dread no foe but Debt;
Meet ill-fortune steady,
Hand to hand with mine,
Like a gallant lady,--
Will you, Valentine?

Then, whatever weather
Come, or shine, or shade,
We'll set out together,
Not a whit afraid.
Age is ne'er alarming,--
I shall find, I ween,
You at sixty charming
As at sweet sixteen:
Let's pray, nothing loath, dear,
That our funeral may
Make one date serve both, dear,
As our marriage day.
Then, come joy or sorrow,
Thou art mine,--I thine.
So we'll wed to-morrow,
Dearest Valentine.

(FERGUS'S SEAT.)
A mountain in the Island of Arran, the summit of which resembles a gigantic
human profile.

WITH face turned upward to the changeful sky,
I, Fergus, lie, supine in frozen rest;
The maiden morning clouds slip rosily
Unclasped, unclasping, down my granite breast;
The lightning strikes my brow and passes by.

There's nothing new beneath the sun, I wot:
I, 'Fergus' called,--the great pre-Adamite,
Who for my mortal body blindly sought
Rash immortality, and on this height
Stone-bound, forever am and yet am not,--

There's nothing new beneath the sun, I say.
Ye pigmies of a later race, who come
And play out your brief generation's play
Below me, know, I too spent my life's sum,
And revelled through my short tumultuous day.

O, what is man that he should mouth so grand
Through his poor thousand as his seventy years?
Whether as king I ruled a trembling land,
Or swayed by tongue or pen my meaner peers,
Or earth's whole learning once did understand,--

What matter? The star-angels know it all.
They who came sweeping through the silent night
And stood before me, yet did not appal:
Till, fighting 'gainst me in their courses bright,*
Celestial smote terrestrial.--Hence, my fall.

Hence, Heaven cursed me with a granted prayer;
Made my hill-seat eternal: bade me keep
My pageant of majestic lone despair,
While one by one into the infinite deep
Sank kindred, realm, throne, world: yet I lay there.

There still I lie. Where are my glories fled?
My wisdom that I boasted as divine?
My grand primeval women fair, who shed
Their whole life's joy to crown one hour of mine,
And live to curse the love they coveted?
___________________

'The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.'

Gone--gone. Uncounted æons have rolled by,
And still my ghost sits by its corpse of stone,
And still the blue smile of the new-formed sky
Finds me unchanged. Slow centuries crawling on
Bring myriads happy death:--I cannot die.

My stone shape mocks the dead man's peaceful face,
And straightened arm that will not labor more;
And yet I yearn for a mean six-foot space
To moulder in, with daisies growing o'er,
Rather than this unearthly resting-place;--

Where pinnacled, my silent effigy
Against the sunset rising clear and cold,
Startles the musing mstranger sailing by,
And calls up thoughts that never can be told,
Of life, and death, and immortality.

While I?--I watch this after world that creeps
Nearer and nearer to the feet of God:
Ay, though it labors, struggles, sins, and weeps,
Yet, love-drawn, follows ever Him who trod
Through dim Gethsemane to Cavalry's steeps.

O glorious shame! O royal servitude!
High lowliness, and ignorance all-wise!
Pure life with death, and death with life imbued;--
My centuried splendors crumble 'neath Thine eyes,
Thou Holy One who died upon the Rood!

Therefore, face upward to the Christian heaven,
I, Fergus, lie: expectant, humble, calm;
Dumb emblem of the faith to me not given;
The clouds drop chrism, the stars their midnight psalm
Chant over one, who passed away unshriven.

'I am the Resurrection and the Life.',
So from yon mountain graveyard cries the dust
Of child to parent, husband unto wife,
Consoling, and believing in the Just:--
Christ lives, though all the universe died in strife.

Therefore my granite lips forever pray,
'O rains, wash out my sin of self abhorred:
O sun, melt thou my heart of stone away,
Out of Thy plenteous mercy save me, Lord.'
And thus I wait till Resurrection-day.