The Cotton Boll
While I recline At ease beneath This immemorial pine, Small sphere! (By dusky fingers brought this morning here And shown with boastful smiles), I turn thy cloven sheath, Through which the soft white fibres peer, That, with their gossamer bands, Unite, like love, the sea-divided lands, And slowly, thread by thread, Draw forth the folded strands, Than which the trembling line, By whose frail help yon startled spider fled Down the tall spear-grass from his swinging bed, Is scarce more fine; And as the tangled skein Unravels in my hands, Betwixt me and the noonday light, A veil seems lifted, and for miles and miles The landscape broadens on my sight, As, in the little boll, there lurked a spell Like that which, in the ocean shell, With mystic sound, Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round, And turns some city lane Into the restless main, With all his capes and isles! Yonder bird, Which floats, as if at rest, In those blue tracts above the thunder, where No vapors cloud the stainless air, And never sound is heard, Unless at such rare time When, from the City of the Blest, Rings down some golden chime, Sees not from his high place So vast a cirque of summer space As widens round me in one mighty field, Which, rimmed by seas and sands, Doth hail its earliest daylight in the beams Of gray Atlantic dawns; And, broad as realms made up of many lands, Is lost afar Behind the crimson hills and purple lawns Of sunset, among plains which roll their streams Against the Evening Star! And lo! To the remotest point of sight, Although I gaze upon no waste of snow, The endless field is white; And the whole landscape glows, For many a shining league away, With such accumulated light As Polar lands would flash beneath a tropic day! Nor lack there (for the vision grows, And the small charm within my hands— More potent even than the fabled one, Which oped whatever golden mystery Lay hid in fairy wood or magic vale, The curious ointment of the Arabian tale— Beyond all mortal sense Doth stretch my sight's horizon, and I see, Beneath its simple influence, As if with Uriel's crown, I stood in some great temple of the Sun, And looked, as Uriel, down!) Nor lack there pastures rich and fields all green With all the common gifts of God, For temperate airs and torrid sheen Weave Edens of the sod; Through lands which look one sea of billowy gold Broad rivers wind their devious ways; A hundred isles in their embraces fold A hundred luminous bays; And through yon purple haze Vast mountains lift their plumed peaks cloud-crowned; And, save where up their sides the ploughman creeps, An unhewn forest girds them grandly round, In whose dark shades a future navy sleeps! Ye Stars, which, though unseen, yet with me gaze Upon this loveliest fragment of the earth! Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest rays Above it, as to light a favorite hearth! Ye Clouds, that in your temples in the West See nothing brighter than its humblest flowers! And you, ye Winds, that on the ocean's breast Are kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers! Bear witness with me in my song of praise, And tell the world that, since the world began, No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays, Or given a home to man! But these are charms already widely blown! His be the meed whose pencil's trace Hath touched our very swamps with grace, And round whose tuneful way All Southern laurels bloom; The Poet of "The Woodlands", unto whom Alike are known The flute's low breathing and the trumpet's tone, And the soft west wind's sighs; But who shall utter all the debt, O Land wherein all powers are met That bind a people's heart, The world doth owe thee at this day, And which it never can repay, Yet scarcely deigns to own! Where sleeps the poet who shall fitly sing The source wherefrom doth spring That mighty commerce which, confined To the mean channels of no selfish mart, Goes out to every shore Of this broad earth, and throngs the sea with ships That bear no thunders; hushes hungry lips In alien lands; Joins with a delicate web remotest strands; And gladdening rich and poor, Doth gild Parisian domes, Or feed the cottage-smoke of English homes, And only bounds its blessings by mankind! In offices like these, thy mission lies, My Country! and it shall not end As long as rain shall fall and Heaven bend In blue above thee; though thy foes be hard And cruel as their weapons, it shall guard Thy hearth-stones as a bulwark; make thee great In white and bloodless state; And haply, as the years increase— Still working through its humbler reach With that large wisdom which the ages teach— Revive the half-dead dream of universal peace! As men who labor in that mine Of Cornwall, hollowed out beneath the bed Of ocean, when a storm rolls overhead, Hear the dull booming of the world of brine Above them, and a mighty muffled roar Of winds and waters, yet toil calmly on, And split the rock, and pile the massive ore, Or carve a niche, or shape the archëd roof; So I, as calmly, weave my woof Of song, chanting the days to come, Unsilenced, though the quiet summer air Stirs with the bruit of battles, and each dawn Wakes from its starry silence to the hum Of many gathering armies. Still, In that we sometimes hear, Upon the Northern winds, the voice of woe Not wholly drowned in triumph, though I know The end must crown us, and a few brief years Dry all our tears, I may not sing too gladly. To Thy will Resigned, O Lord! we cannot all forget That there is much even Victory must regret. And, therefore, not too long From the great burthen of our country's wrong Delay our just release! And, if it may be, save These sacred fields of peace From stain of patriot or of hostile blood! Oh, help us, Lord! to roll the crimson flood Back on its course, and, while our banners wing Northward, strike with us! till the Goth shall cling To his own blasted altar-stones, and crave Mercy; and we shall grant it, and dictate The lenient future of his fate There, where some rotting ships and crumbling quays Shall one day mark the Port which ruled the Western seas.
Henry Timrod’s other poems:
