Unbound
J.F.B. Died April 29,1882
Forth from this low estate,
Fetterless now of fate,
Pass, spirit blest!
Out of the cark and care,
Out of the griefs that were,
Into thy rest.
Done with the weary round
Daily thy soul that bound
From its true aim, -
Little can matter now
Fame’s wreath upon the brow,
Earth-praise or blame.
God! is there of despair
Keener than this to bear,
Under the sun:
Tasked, like a slave in chains,
While our true work remains
Waiting, undone?
Feeling, as life sweeps by,
All the pure majesty
Of that we miss?
Fettered and tortured so,
Christ, pity all who know
Sorrow like this!
Not here was given his wage:
Of his best heritage
Barred and denied.
Man of the silver tongue,
Poet of songs unsung,
Dreamer, clear-eyed;
Slave not to gain or greed;
Bound by no narrow creed
By priestcraft taught:
In God’s fair universe
Seeing nor hate, nor curse
Of Him that wrought;
Trusting the love divine, -
Carless of church or shrine,
Blessing or ban;
His prayer the common good,
His faith the brotherhood
Of man with man.
And if unto his eyes
Veiled were the mysteries
Of the far shore,
Who of us all may be
Wiser, in truth, than he?
Who knoweth more?
Never the kindly wit
Lighter, because of it,
Sad hearts shall make;
No more the earnest thought,
With its deep lesson fraught,
Souls shall awake.
Eloquent eye and lip,
Peerless companionship,
Passed from the earth.
Friend of the many years,
Well for thee fall my tears,
Knowing thy worth.
Flowers on the gentle breast,
Lay the frail form to rest
Under the sod.
Passed from earth’s low estate,
Fetterless now of fate,
Leave him with God.
Bret Harte*
What wizardry is this? What necromance?
These forest-aisles, these mountains grim and vast?
These shadowy forms and faces that advance
From out of the misty past?
The old familiar faces, how they crowd!
Like ghosts returning from the farther shore!
These Beings without Being, yet endowed
With life for evermore.
Each in my own life-weft has woven part,
Whether or grave or gay; unkempt or shorn;
This one, ‘The Luck’ they call him, stole my heart
The day that he was born.
With these I sat beside the camp-fire’s glow
And heard, through untaught lips, old Homer tell
The Tale of Troy, till with the falling snow
God’s last white silence fell.
I knew the cabin in the lone ravine
Where she, the Fallen, far from mart and men,
Watched by the stricken and, unknown, made clean
Her garment’s hem again.
And these, the Partners in world-storm and stress,
With faithful love, unknowing selfish aim;
The friendship pure that grew not cold nor less
Through good or evil fame.
These, too (I loved them!) , reckless, debonair,
That life and fortune staked upon a cast;
The soul itself held lightly as the air,
To win or lose at last.
I tracked the mountain trail with them; the sweet
Cool smell of pines I breathed beneath the stars;
The laugh, the song I heard; the rhythmic feet
To tinkle of guitars.
I knew the Mission’s fragrant garden-close,
Heavy with blooms the wind might scarcely stir,
Its little laughing maid-Castilian rose! -
And saucy speech of her.
I knew them all-but best of all I knew
(Who in himself had something of all these)
The Man, within whose teeming fancy grew
These wondrous histories.
I see him often, with the brown hair half
Tossed from the leaning brow, the soft yet keen
Gray eyes uplifted with a tear or laugh
From the pen-pictured scene.
And hear the voice that read to me his dear
World-children-and I listen till I seem
Back in the olden days; they are the near
And these are but a dream.
O Prince of Song and Story! Thee we claim,
The first and dearest, still our very own!
We will not yield the glory of thy name
Nor share thy laureled throne!
Altho beneath a gray and alien sky,
Across long leagues of land and leagues of wave,
We may not reach thy dust with tear and sigh,
Nor deck thy lonely grave.
* Written for the Bret Harte Memorial Jinks of the Bohemian Club,
San Francisco, California; on which occasion the Jinks Room was
Transformed into a mining camp in the Sierras, and the chief
characters in Bret Hart’s works were represented by the club
members.
