Poems (Whitney)/Kristel's soliloquy

by Anne Whitney

KRISTEL'S SOLILOQUY.

My log house stands by the river:—
Not higher than the topmost swell
At the vernal flood:—but I have an attic,
And over it stately poplars shiver,
And lend me twenty arms ecstatic
To lift me over the surge. And well,
When the roaring freshet threatens, I know,
And, taking my meat and honey, go
Into the leafy nook above;
'Whence I watch the river, raving
Up from its yellow depths, and the broad
Lagunas, islanding many a grove;
And if the waters me defraud
Of homestead and home, and turd my cabin
Into a raft,—I do not murmur
More than a thrush, whose nest in summer,
A twisted branch of ash displaces;
For are there not a million places,
And leaves in the wood for the minstrel free,
And a million logs as well for me?

Such is my manhood's outer shell.
Over many a flowery swell
I follow the trail to hunter dear.
The plain's long-bearded nobles rear
Their ponderous fronts, and snuff with doubt
The air my rifle scatters about.
Whether at midnight or at noon,
At the hour beloved of the rising moon,
When the deer come forth from their shady lair,
I watch by the licks, or in the dark
Recesses of the wilding park.
From wood and field, and flood and air,
Treasures of beauty and of use
My lowliness do not refuse.
The summer robe of the bison falls
In shady softness-down my walls;
The stag's coat hides mine earthen floor;
His antlers, branched like a sapling oak,
Are cornices for window and door.
And plumes that tropic winds have strook,
In tapestry of varied thought,
By hands of forest maidens wrought,
Come to my cabin, without strife
To live again in a human life.

And yet I wage no needless war;—
No wanton hand strikes down the wing,
Of stays upon the bended plain
The bison's stately journeying.
No form of lowliest grace I mar;
Nor in the forest's wide domain,
Nor in my garden's round, I cull
Aught good, or sweet; or beautiful,
But all the more to dedicate
To service pure its gentle state.

True, in a corner of my hut
Is a little shrine, whereon I put
Fresh-blooming child;'en of the wood—
Forget-me-not and the solitude-
Shunning linnæa. Unto the same,
I consecrate.the winged. flame
Of columbine, and that which stole
The innermost secret of the sky,
The water-lily's vestal soul,
With the sweetness in the clover hived
So deep. This is in memory
Of one, whose love my love outlived.
And so, to steep
In memory all that I should keep,
The queen magnolia there I set,
And circle it with low mignonette.
For I think ofttimes, altho' her sphere,
Radiant and high, I come not near,
Nor ever can again—that still
If I surround her thought with love,
And evermore a patient will
To watch, to strive, to wait and prove
The peace heaven offers, to the end,—
Out of my pain and silent strife,
Some fragrance God will take, and blend
An unknown sweetness with her life.

The prairie sways, and the river rolls,
And the sun and the moon—and nothing is lost
In all the skies" unmeasured coast,
Nothing too in the kingdom of souls.
Broad stream, that yieldest silently
Such largess to the noonday sky,
Hear how the brooding cushat mourns
Her love. We will not mourn or weep,
Or lock ourselves in wintry sleep;
But bide in peace heaven's large returns.
All that he has and is, who gives,
With whom no earth-born wish survives
To hoard his little grief or bliss,
God his great debtor surely is,
And pays infinity. Who meet
The coming fate half-way, and fling
Their blessed treasures at her feet,
Shall feel, through all her clamoring,
Her hard eye quail; she knows 'twere vain
To empty what God brims again.