Classic Poem

Lowell was in high spirits when he was at work on A Legend of Brittany . “I am now at work,” he writes to G. B. Loring, under date of June 15, 1843, “on a still longer poem [than Prometheus] in the ottava rima , to be the first in my forthcoming volume. I feel more and more assured every day that I shall yet do something that will keep my name (and perhaps my body) alive. My wings were never so light and strong as now.”
A Legend of Brittany and most of the other poems in the volume which it opened belong in the category referred to by him in his Prefatory Note , of pieces which he “would gladly suppress or put into the Coventry of smaller print in an appendix.” Their value is chiefly in the record they contain of his poetic development and his temperament.
PART FIRST

I

Fair as a summer dream was Margaret,
?Such dream as in a poet's soul might start,
Musing of old loves while the moon doth set:
?Her hair was not more sunny than her heart,
Though like a natural golden coronet
?It circled her dear head with careless art,
Mocking the sunshine, that would fain have lent
To its frank grace a richer ornament.
II

His loved one's eyes could poet ever speak,
?So kind, so dewy, and so deep were hers,—
But, while he strives, the choicest phrase, too weak,
?Their glad reflection in his spirit blurs;
As one may see a dream dissolve and break
?Out of his grasp when he to tell it stirs,
Like that sad Dryad doomed no more to bless
The mortal who revealed her loveliness.
III

She dwelt forever in a region bright,
?Peopled with living fancies of her own,
Where naught could come but visions of delight,
?Far, far aloof from earth's eternal moan:
A summer cloud thrilled through with rosy light,
?Floating beneath the blue sky all alone,
Her spirit wandered by itself, and won
A golden edge from some unsetting sun.
IV

The heart grows richer that its lot is poor,
?God blesses want with larger sympathies,
Love enters gladliest at the humble door,
?And makes the cot a palace with his eyes;
So Margaret's heart a softer beauty wore,
?And grew in gentleness and patience wise,
For she was but a simple herdsman's child,
A lily chance-sown in the rugged wild.
V

There was no beauty of the wood or field
?But she its fragrant bosom-secret knew,
Nor any but to her would freely yield
?Some grace that in her soul took root and grew:
Nature to her shone as but now revealed,
?All rosy-fresh with innocent morning dew,
And looked into her heart with dim, sweet eyes
That left it full of sylvan memories.
VI

Oh, what a face was hers to brighten light,
?And give back sunshine with an added glow,
To wile each moment with a fresh delight,
?And part of memory's best contentment grow!
Oh, how her voice, as with an inmate's right,
?Into the strangest heart would welcome go,
And make it sweet, and ready to become
Of white and gracious thoughts the chosen home!
VII

None looked upon her but he straightway thought
?Of all the greenest depths of country cheer,
And into each one's heart was freshly brought
?What was to him the sweetest time of year,
So was her every look and motion fraught
?With out-of-door delights and forest lere;
Not the first violet on a woodland lea
Seemed a more visible gift of Spring than she.
VIII

Is love learned only out of poets' books?
?Is there not somewhat in the dropping flood,
And in the nunneries of silent nooks,
?And in the murmured longing of the wood,
That could make Margaret dream of lovelorn looks,
?And stir a thrilling mystery in her blood
More trembly secret than Aurora's tear
Shed in the bosom of an eglatere?
IX

Full many a sweet forewarning hath the mind,
?Full many a whispering of vague desire,
Ere comes the nature destined to unbind
?Its virgin zone, and all its deeps inspire,—
Low stirrings in the leaves, before the wind
?Wake all the green strings of the forest lyre,
Faint heatings in the calyx, ere the rose
Its warm voluptuous breast doth all unclose.
X

Long in its dim recesses pines the spirit,
?Wildered and dark, despairingly alone;
Though many a shape of beauty wander near it,
?And many a wild and half-remembered tone
Tremble from the divine abyss to cheer it,
?Yet still it knows that there is only one
Before whom it can kneel and tribute bring,
At once a happy vassal and a king.
XI

To feel a want, yet scarce know what it is,
?To seek one nature that is always new,
Whose glance is warmer than another's kiss,
?Whom we can bare our inmost beauty to,
Nor feel deserted afterwards,—for this
?But with our destined co-mate we can do,—
Such longing instinct fills the mighty scope
Of the young soul with one mysterious hope.
XII

So Margaret's heart grew brimming with the lore
?Of love's enticing secrets; and although
She had found none to cast it down before,
?Yet oft to Fancy's chapel she would go
To pay her vows—and count the rosary o'ër
?Of her love's promised graces:—haply so
Miranda's hope had pictured Ferdinand
Long ere the gaunt wave tossed him on the strand.
XIII

A new-made star that swims the lonely gloom,
?Unwedded yet and longing for the sun,
Whose beams, the bride-gifts of the lavish groom,
?Blithely to crown the virgin planet run,
Her being was, watching to see the bloom
?Of love's fresh sunrise roofing one by one
Its clouds with gold, a triumph-arch to be
For him who came to hold her heart in fee.
XIV

Not far from Margaret's cottage dwelt a knight
?Of the proud Templars, a sworn celibate,
Whose heart in secret fed upon the light
?And dew of her ripe beauty, through the grate
Of his close vow catching what gleams he might
?Of the free heaven, and cursing all too late
The cruel faith whose black walls hemmed him in
And turned life's crowning bliss to deadly sin.
XV

For he had met her in the wood by chance,
?And, having drunk her beauty's wildering spell,
His heart shook like the pennon of a lance
?That quivers in a breeze's sudden swell,
And thenceforth, in a close-infolded trance,
?From mistily golden deep to deep he fell;
Till earth did waver and fade far away
Beneath the hope in whose warm arms he lay.
XVI

A dark, proud man he was, whose half-blown youth
?Had shed its blossoms even in opening,
Leaving a few that with more winning ruth
?Trembling around grave manhood's stem might cling,
More sad than cheery, making, in good sooth,
?Like the fringed gentian, a late autumn spring:
A twilight nature, braided light and gloom,
A youth half-smiling by an open tomb.
XVII

Fair as an angel, who yet inly wore
?A wrinkled heart foreboding his near fall;
Who saw him alway wished to know him more,
?As if he were some fate's defiant thrall
And nursed a dreaded secret at his core;
?Little he loved, but power the most of all,
And that he seemed to scorn, as one who knew
By what foul paths men choose to crawl thereto.
XVIII

He had been noble, but some great deceit
?Had turned his better instinct to a vice:
He strove to think the world was all a cheat,
?That power and fame were cheap at any price.
That the sure way of being shortly great
?Was even to play life's game with loaded dice,
Since he had tried the honest play and found
That vice and virtue differed but in sound.
XIX

Yet Margaret's sight redeemed him for a space
?From his own thraldom; man could never be
A hypocrite when first such maiden grace
?Smiled in upon his heart; the agony
Of wearing all day long a lying face
?Fell lightly from him, and, a moment free,
Erect with wakened faith his spirit stood
And scorned the weakness of his demonmood.
XX

Like a sweet wind-harp to him was her thought,
?Which would not let the common air come near,
Till from its dim enchantment it had caught
?A musical tenderness that brimmed his ear
With sweetness more ethereal than aught
?Save silver-dropping snatches that whilere
Rained down from some sad angel's faithful harp
To cool her fallen lover's anguish sharp.
XXI

Deep in the forest was a little dell
?High overarchëd with the leafy sweep
Of a broad oak, through whose gnarled roots there fell
?A slender rill that sung itself to sleep,
Where its continuous toil had scooped a well
?To please the fairy folk; breathlessly deep
The stillness was, save when the dreaming brook
From its small urn a drizzly murmur shook.
XXII

The wooded hills sloped upward all around
?With gradual rise, and made an even rim,
So that it seemed a mighty casque unbound
?From some huge Titan's brow to lighten him,
Ages ago, and left upon the ground,
?Where the slow soil had mossed it to the brim,
Till after countless centuries it grew
Into this dell, the haunt of noontide dew.
XXIII

Dim vistas, sprinkled o'er with sun-flecked green,
?Wound through the thickset trunks on every side,
And, toward the west, in fancy might be seen
?A Gothic window in its blazing pride,
When the low sun, two arching elms between,
?Lit up the leaves beyond, which, autumndyed
With lavish hues, would into splendor start,
Shaming the labored panes of richest art.
XXIV

Here, leaning once against the old oak's trunk,
?Mordred, for such was the young Templar's name,
Saw Margaret come; unseen, the falcon shrunk
?From the meek dove; sharp thrills of tingling flame
Made him forget that he was vowed a monk,
?And all the outworks of his pride o'ercame:
Flooded he seemed with bright delicious pain,
As if a star had burst within his brain.
XXV

Such power hath beauty and frank innocence:
?A flower bloomed forth, that sunshine glad to bless,
Even from his love's long leafless stem; the sense
?Of exile from Hope's happy realm grew less,
And thoughts of childish peace, he knew not whence,
?Thronged round his heart with many an old caress,
Melting the frost there into pearly dew
That mirrored back his nature's morning-blue.
XXVI

She turned and saw him, but she felt no dread,
?Her purity, like adamantine mail,
Did so encircle her; and yet her head
?She drooped, and made her golden hair her veil,
Through which a glow of rosiest lustre spread,
?Then faded, and anon she stood all pale,
As snow o'er which a blush of northern-light
Suddenly reddens, and as soon grows white.
XXVII

She thought of Tristrem and of Lancilot,
?Of all her dreams, and of kind fairies' might,
And how that dell was deemed a haunted spot,
?Until there grew a mist before her sight,
And where the present was she half forgot,
?Borne backward through the realms of old delight,—
Then, starting up awake, she would have gone,
Yet almost wished it might not be alone.
XXVIII

How they went home together through the wood,
?And how all life seemed focussed into one
Thought-dazzling spot that set ablaze the blood,
?What need to tell? Fit language there is none
For the heart's deepest things. Who ever wooed
?As in his boyish hope he would have done?
For, when the soul is fullest, the hushed tongue
Voicelessly trembles like a lute unstrung.
XXIX

But all things carry the heart's messages
?And know it not, nor doth the heart well know,
But Nature hath her will; even as the bees,
?Blithe go-betweens, fly singing to and fro
With the fruit-quickening pollen;—hard if these
?Found not some all unthought-of way to show
Their secret each to each; and so they did,
And one heart's flower-dust into the other slid.
XXX

Young hearts are free; the selfish world it is
?That turns them miserly and cold as stone,
And makes them clutch their fingers on the bliss
?Which but in giving truly is their own;—
She had no dreams of barter, asked not his,
?But gave hers freely as she would have thrown
A rose to him, or as that rose gives forth
Its generous fragrance, thoughtless of its worth.
XXXI

Her summer nature felt a need to bless,
?And a like longing to be blest again;
So, from her sky-like spirit, gentleness
?Dropt ever like a sunlit fall of rain,
And his beneath drank in the bright caress
?As thirstily as would a parchëd plain,
That long hath watched the showers of sloping gray
For ever, ever, falling far away.
XXXII

How should she dream of ill? the heart filled quite
?With sunshine, like the shepherd's-clock at noon,
Closes its leaves around its warm delight;
?Whate'er in life is harsh or out of tune
Is all shut out, no boding shade of blight
?Can pierce the opiate ether of its swoon:
Love is but blind as thoughtful justice is,
But naught can be so wanton-blind as bliss.
XXXIII

All beauty and all life he was to her;
?She questioned not his love, she only knew
That she loved him, and not a pulse could stir
?In her whole frame but quivered through and through
With this glad thought, and was a minister
?To do him fealty end service true,
Like golden ripples hasting to the land
To wreck their freight of sunshine on the strand.
XXXIV

O dewy dawn of love! O hopes that are
?Hung high, like the cliff-swallow's perilous nest,
Most like to fall when fullest, and that jar
?With every heavier billow! O unrest
Than balmiest deeps of quiet sweeter far!
?How did ye triumph now in Margaret's breast,
Making it readier to shrink and start
Than quivering gold of the pond-lily's heart!
XXXV

Here let us pause: oh, would the soul might ever
?Achieve its immortality in youth,
When nothing yet hath damped its high endeavor
?After the starry energy of truth!
Here let us pause, and for a moment sever
?This gleam of sunshine from the sad unruth
That sometime comes to all, for it is good
To lengthen to the last a sunny mood.
PART SECOND

I

As one who, from the sunshine and the green,
?Enters the solid darkness of a cave,
Nor knows what precipice or pit unseen
?May yawn before him with its sudden grave,
And, with hushed breath, doth often forward lean,
?Dreaming he hears the plashing of a wave
Dimly below, or feels a damper air
From out some dreary chasm, he knows not where;
II

So, from the sunshine and the green of love,
?We enter on our story's darker part;
And, though the horror of it well may move
?An impulse of repugnance in the heart,
Yet let us think, that, as there's naught above
?The all-embracing atmosphere of Art,
So also there is naught that falls below
Her generous reach, though grimed with guilt and woe.
III

Her fittest triumph is to show that good
?Lurks in the heart of evil evermore,
That love, though scorned, and outcast, and withstood,
?Can without end forgive, and yet have store;
God's love and man's are of the selfsame blood,
?And He can see that always at the door
Of foulest hearts the angel-nature yet
Knocks to return and cancel all its debt.
IV

It ever is weak falsehood's destiny
?That her thick mask turns crystal to let through
The unsuspicious eyes of honesty;
?But Margaret's heart was too sincere and true
Aught but plain truth and faithfulness to see,
?And Mordred's for a time a little grew
To be like hers, won by the mild reproof
Of those kind eyes that kept all doubt aloof.
V

Full oft they met, as dawn and twilight meet
?In northern climes; she full of growing day
As he of darkness, which before her feet
?Shrank gradual, and faded quite away,
Soon to return; for power had made love sweet
?To him, and, when his will had gained full sway,
The taste began to pall; for never power
Can sate the hungry soul beyond an hour.
VI

He fell as doth the tempter ever fall,
?Even in the gaining of his loathsome end;
God doth not work as man works, but makes all
?The crooked paths of ill to goodness tend;
Let him judge Margaret! If to be the thrall
?Of love, and faith too generous to defend
Its very life from him she loved, be sin,
What hope of grace may the seducer win?
VII

Grim-hearted world, that look'st with Levite eyes
?On those poor fallen by too much faith in man,
She that upon thy freezing threshold lies,
?Starved to more sinning by thy savage ban,
Seeking that refuge because foulest vice
?More godlike than thy virtue is, whose span
Shuts out the wretched only, is more free
To enter heaven than thou shalt e