John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Narrative and Legendary PoemsNorembega
T
The mystic water took,
From where, to count its beaded lakes,
The forest sped its brook.
For sun or stars to fall,
While evermore, behind, before,
Closed in the forest wall.
Wan flowers without a name;
Life tangled with decay and death,
League after league the same.
The rounding shadow lay,
Save where the river cut at will
A pathway to the day.
Weak as a child unweaned,
At shut of day a Christian knight
Upon his henchman leaned.
Along the clouds burned down;
“I see,” he said, “the domes and spires
Of Norembega town.”
Are golden clouds on high;
Yon spire is but the branchless pine
That cuts the evening sky.”
But chants and holy hymns?”
“Thou hear’st the breeze that stirs the trees
Through all their leafy limbs.”
The air with its low tone?”
“Thou hear’st the tinkle of the rills,
The insect’s vesper drone.”
A blessed cross in sight!”
“Now, nay, ’t is but yon blasted tree
With two gaunt arms outright!”
It mattereth not, my knave;
Methinks to funeral hymns I hark,
The cross is for my grave!
My home-set sails again;
The sweetest eyes of Normandie
Shall watch for me in vain.
The baffling marvel calls;
I fain would look before I die
On Norembega’s walls.
At Christian feet to lay
The mystery of the desert’s heart
My dead hand plucked away.
And look from yonder heights;
Perchance the valley even now
Is starred with city lights.”
He saw nor tower nor town,
But, through the drear woods, lone and still,
The river rolling down.
Whose shapes he could not see,
A flutter as of evil wings,
The fall of a dead tree.
A sword of fire beyond;
He heard the wolf howl, and the loon
Laugh from his reedy pond.
We are but men misled;
And thou hast sought a city here
To find a grave instead.”
A true man’s cross may stand,
So Heaven be o’er it here as there
In pleasant Norman land?
Of lordly tower and hall;
Yon river in its wanderings wide
Has washed no city wall;
The holy stars are given:
Is Norembega, then, a dream
Whose waking is in Heaven?
My weary eyes shall see;
A city never made with hands
Alone awaiteth me—
Its mansions passing fair,
‘Condita cœlo;’ let me be,
Dear Lord, a dweller there!”
The vision of the bard,
As faltered on his failing tongue
The song of good Bernard.
Beneath the hemlocks brown,
And to the desert’s keeping gave
The lord of fief and town.
Sailed up the unknown stream,
And Norembega proved again
A shadow and a dream,
Within the hemlock’s shade,
And, stretching wide its arms to save,
The sign that God had made,
And made it holy ground:
He needs the earthly city not
Who hath the heavenly found.