Читать книгу The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell - James Russell Lowell - Страница 27

Among the toil-worn poor my soul is seeking

For who shall bring the Maker's name to light,

To be the voice of that almighty speaking

Which every age demands to do it right.

Proprieties our silken bards environ;

He who would be the tongue of this wide land

Must string his harp with chords of sturdy iron

And strike it with a toil-imbrownèd hand; 120

One who hath dwelt with Nature well attended,

Who hath learnt wisdom from her mystic books,

Whose soul with all her countless lives hath blended,

So that all beauty awes us in his looks:

Who not with body's waste his soul hath pampered,

Who as the clear northwestern wind is free,

Who walks with Form's observances unhampered,

And follows the One Will obediently;

Whose eyes, like windows on a breezy summit,

Control a lovely prospect every way; 130

Who doth not sound God's sea with earthly plummet,

And find a bottom still of worthless clay;

Who heeds not how the lower gusts are working,

Knowing that one sure wind blows on above,

And sees, beneath the foulest faces lurking,

One God-built shrine of reverence and love;

Who sees all stars that wheel their shining marches

Around the centre fixed of Destiny,

Where the encircling soul serene o'erarches

The moving globe of being like a sky; 140

Who feels that God and Heaven's great deeps are nearer

Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh,

Who doth not hold his soul's own freedom dearer

Than that of all his brethren, low or high;

Who to the Right can feel himself the truer

For being gently patient with the wrong,

Who sees a brother in the evildoer,

And finds in Love the heart's-blood of his song;—

This, this is he for whom the world is waiting

To sing the beatings of its mighty heart, 150

Too long hath it been patient with the grating

Of scrannel-pipes, and heard it misnamed Art.

To him the smiling soul of man shall listen,

Laying awhile its crown of thorns aside,

And once again in every eye shall glisten

The glory of a nature satisfied.

His verse shall have a great commanding motion,

Heaving and swelling with a melody

Learnt of the sky, the river, and the ocean,

And all the pure, majestic things that be. 160

Awake, then, thou! we pine for thy great presence

To make us feel the soul once more sublime,

We are of far too infinite an essence

To rest contented with the lies of Time.

Speak out! and lo! a hush of deepest wonder

Shall sink o'er all this many-voicèd scene,

As when a sudden burst of rattling thunder

Shatters the blueness of a sky serene.