The Coast of Bohemia.

by Thomas Nelson Page.

PREFACE

One who after writing prose all his life suddenly essays to launch a volume of verse, must know something of the feeling with which an old-time sailor after coasting only his native sh.o.r.es found himself setting sail into an unknown sea.

The author of this little volume knows quite as well as the most experienced mariner the temerity of sailing an untried main in so frail a bark. But he is willing, if the Fates so decree, to go down with the unnumbered sail of that great fleet which have throughout the ages faced the wide ocean of oblivion, merely for the thrill of being for a brief s.p.a.ce on its vast waters.

Since Horace, secure in the double endowment of genius and of an Emperor's favor, wrote scornfully how hated of G.o.ds and men was middling verse, no one has ever doubted the fact--perhaps, not even one of all the myriads who have dared to brave that bitter scorn. The explanation then for the production of so much of the despised matter must be that there is for the minor poet also a music that the outer world does not catch--an inner day which the outer world does not see.

It is this music, this light which, for the most part, is for the lesser poet his only reward. That he has heard, however brokenly, and at however vast a distance, s.n.a.t.c.hes of those strains which thrilled the souls of Marlowe and Milton and Keats and Sh.e.l.ley, even though he may never reproduce one of them, is moreover a sufficiently high reward.

T. N. P.

THE COAST OF BOHEMIA

.... "Few, few are they: Perchance, among a thousand, one Thou shouldest find, for whom the sun Of Poesy makes an inner day."

--_The Medea of Euripides--Way's Translation._

DEDICATION

TO F. L. P.

As one who wanders in a lonely land, Through all the blackness of a stormy night, Now stumbling here, now falling there outright, And doubts if it be worse to stir or stand, Not knowing what abysses yawn at hand, What torrents roar beyond some beetling height; Yet scales the top to find the dawn in sight, And Earth kissed into radiance with its wand: So, wandering hopeless in the darkness, I, Scarce recking whither led my painful way, Or whether I should faint or strive to prove If 'yond the mountain-top some path might lie, Climbed boldly up the steep, and lo! the Day Broke into pearl and splendor in thy love.

THE COAST OF BOHEMIA

There is a land not charted on all charts; Though many mariners have touched its coast, Who far adventuring in those distant parts, Meet ship-wreck there and are forever lost; Or if they e'er return, are soon once more Borne far away by hunger for that magic sh.o.r.e.

Its mystic mountains on the horizon piled, Some mariners have glimpsed when driven far Out of life's measured course by tempests wild, Or lured therefrom by the erratic star They chose as pilot, till their errant guide Drew them resistlessly within its witching tide.

For oft, they tell, who know its sapphire strand The golden haze enfolding it hangs low, And those who careless steer may miss the land, Embosomed in the sunset's purple glow, Its lights mistaken for the evening stars, Its music for the surf-beat on its golden bars.

Young Jason found it when he dauntless sought The golden fleece by Colchis' perilous stream, And in his track full many an argonaut Hath found the rare fleece of his golden dream, And at the last, Ulysses-like, surcease From Sorrow's dole and Labor's heavy prease.

One voyager charted it for every age, From azure rim to starry mountain core.

A nameless player on the World's great stage, He spread his sails, adventured to that sh.o.r.e And reared a pharos with his art sublime, Like Ilion's song-wrought towers, to beacon every clime.

The great adventurers reached it when they brake Columbus-led into the unknown West, And those who followed in their shining wake, But left no trace of where their keels have pressed; Yet have through stress of storm and tempests' rage Won by his quenchless light a happy anchorage.

There rest the heroes of lost causes lorn, On their calm brows more fadeless chaplets far Than all their conquerors' could e'er adorn, When shone effulgent Fame's ascendant star; There fallen patriots reap the glorious prize Of deathless memory of their precious sacrifice.

There many a dream-faced maid and matron dwells, From Argive Helen on through gliding time; There drink the poets draughts from crystal wells, And choir high music to their harps sublime: And there the great philosophers discourse Divine Philosophy in due and tranquil course.

There not alone the great and lofty sing; But silent poets too find there the song They only sang in dreams when wandering Amazed and lost amid the earthly throng; Their hearts unfettered all from worldly fears.

Attuned to meet the s.p.a.cious music of the spheres:

Gray, wrinkled men, the sea-salt in their hair, Their eyes set deep with peering through the gloom, Their voices low with speaking ever, where The surges break beneath the mountains' loom; But deep within their yearning, burning eyes The light reflected ever from those radiant skies.

There fadeless Youth, unknowing of annoy, Walks aye with changeless Love; and Sorrow there Is but a memory to hallow Joy, With chastened Happiness so deep and rare, Well-nigh the Heart aches with its rich content, And Hope with full fruition evermore is blent.

Constant Penelope, her web complete, Rests there content at last and smiling down On worn Ulysses basking at her feet; Calm Beatrice wears joyously the crown Bestowed by exiled Dante in his grief, And Laura, kind, gives Petrarch's tuneful heart relief.

'Mid bloomy meadows laved by limpid streams, Repose the Muses and the Graces sweet; There kiss we lips we only kissed in dreams Meshed in the grosser world; and there we meet The fair and flower-like lost loves of our Youth, When unafraid we trod the ways with radiant Truth.

Those who return have pressed alone the coast; But tell of some lost in that charmed strond: Aspiring souls who loving Honor most, Have sought the crystal mountain-tops beyond, And striven upward, heedless of their scars, To where all paths lead ever to the shining stars.

THE VOICE OF THE SEA

Thus spake to Man the thousand-throated Sea; Words which the stealing winds caught from its lips:

Thou thinkest thee and thine, G.o.d's topmost crown.

But hearken unto me and humbly learn How infinite thine insignificance.

Thou boastest of thine age--thy works--thyself: Thine oldest monuments of which thou prat'st Were built but yesterday when measured by Yon snow-domed mountains of eternal rock: The Earth, thy mother, from whose breast thou draw'st, The sweat-stained living which she wills to give, And in whose dust thine own must melt again, Was aged cycles ere thine earliest dawn;-- But they to me are young: I gave them birth.

Climb up those heaven-tipt peaks thy dizziest height, Thou there shalt read, graved deep, my name and age; Dig down thy deepest depth, shalt read them still.

Before the mountains sprang, before the Earth, Thy cradle and thy tomb, was made, I was: G.o.d called them forth from me, as thee from Earth.

Thou burrow'st through a mountain, here and there, Work'st all thine engines, cutting off a speck; I wash their rock-foundations under; tear Turret from turret, toppling thundering down, And crush their mightiest fragments into sand: Thou gravest with thy records slab and spar, And callest them memorials of thy Might;-- Lo! not a stone exists, from yon black cliff To that small pebble at thy foot, but bears My signature graved there when Earth was young, To teach the mighty wonders of the Deep.

Thy deeds--thyself--are what? A morning mist!

But I! I face the ages. Dost not know That as I gave the Earth to spread her fair And dew-washed body in the morning light, So, still, 't is I that keep her fair and fresh?-- That weave her robes and nightly diamond them?

I fill her odorous bowers with perfumes rare; Strew field and forest with bee-haunted stars; I give the Morn pearl for her radiant roof, And Eve lend glory for her rosy dome; I build the purple towers that hold the West And guard the pa.s.sage of Retiring Day.

Thy frailest fabric far outlasts thyself: The pyramids rise from the desert sands, Their builders blown in dust about their feet.

The winged bull looms mid an alien race, Grim, silent, lone. But whither went the King?

I cool the lambent air upon my breast, And send the winds forth on mine emba.s.sies; I offer all my body to the Sun, And lade our caravans with merchandise, To carry wealth and plenty to all climes.

Yon fleecy continents of floating snow, That dwarf the mountains over which they sail, Are but my bales borne by my messengers, To cheer and gladden every thirsty land.

The Arab by his palm-girt desert pool, The Laplander above his frozen rill, The Woodsman crouched beside his forest brook, The shepherd mirrored in his upland spring, Drink of my cup in one great brotherhood.

'T is, nay, not man alone--thou art but one Of all the myriads of life-holding things,-- Brute, beast, bird, reptile, insect, thing unnamed, Whose souls find recreation in my breath: Nay, not a tree, flower, sprig of gra.s.s or weed, But lives through me and hymns my praise to G.o.d: I feed, sustain, refresh and keep them all: Mirror and type of G.o.d that giveth life.

I sing as softly as a mother croons Her drowsy babe to sleep upon her breast.

On quiet nights when all my winds are laid, I wile the stars down from their azure home To sink with golden footprints in my depths: I show the silvered pathway to the moon, All paved with gems the errant Pleiad lost, That night she strayed from her sisters wan; But I sing other times strains from that song Before whose awfulness my waters sank, And at whose harmony the mountains rose, I heard that morning when the breath of G.o.d Moved on my face, and said, Let there be light!

I thrill and tremble since but at the thought Of that great wonder of that greatest dawn, When at G.o.d's word the brooding darkness rose, Which veiled my face from all the birth of things And rolled far frighted from its resting-place, To bide henceforth beyond Day's crystal walls, While all the morning stars together sang, And on the instant G.o.d stood full revealed!