John Frederic Herbin
Simon
I
SIMON bent to his hissing saw,
Simon the chopper gnarled and tough,
All the years, till his hands were rough
As the clumsy shape of a bruin’s paw,
Knotted and big with his labor long,
Yet sure in the work that made them strong.
Snarling with curse for his hairy throat,
Poverty feared his strong, rough grasp,
Sick with rage at the saw’s bright hasp
That flashed with howl and cut with gloat.
The mother of death and a merciless fate,
She filled his life with the gloom of hate.
Yet his heart strives upward to his tongue
Incomplete in shreds of song
To help his heavy days along
Through life with mental clouds o’erhung.
Harsh as the saw the tunes depart,
Half-made and dull from the singer’s heart.
II
Simon the sage worked night and day,
Simon the chopper wise and true;
Only his song to help him through,
And only his whistle to turn away
The endless gloom of a lowly place,
And the dreary tedium from his face.
His gleaming axe gives up to the light
Hearts of stubborn sticks and blocks—
A century maple or birch unlocks
Its fibres gathered through day and night;
And he marks it all with his ancient lore
As he reads the secret of bark and core.
In forest lore is Simon wise:
The beech that ripens on the hill,
The oak a century cannot kill,
Are well-read books before his eyes;
A forest beneath his axe has turned
In the fifty years his blade has burned.
He speaks and knows as a wise man knows,
Gathering together with dulling sense
The labor’s grudging recompense,
Thoughtful and patient as wisdom grows.
He drifts away from the walks of men,
In a field where he alone has ken.
Simon is wise in days without tears,
Though arms never rest and work cannot sleep,—
Wise in the patience that never shall weep;
And toil looms yet in the coming years:
Ceaseless and hungry is human desire,
And Simon must feed the quenchless fire.
III
Simon the digger delves in the earth,
Preparing a pillow for weary head,
For tired limbs and heart a bed,—
Young, or gray, or dumb at birth,
He makes all ready with prelude dirge,
With careless foot on his own dark verge.
Like the book recording the village birth,
Fifty years he has kept the file
Of all defunct,—and who meanwhile
May soon desire a strip of earth
Are clearly writ—and the ancient book
Has stamped a gloom upon his look.
And he often grappled with death in the grave,
While Time stood by whetting his scythe.
Water may drip, and worms may writhe,
And the coffin will soon leave the chapel-nave:—
Who mourn the dead, as who soon forget,
Look into the grave, unburied yet.
First to come and last to go,
Simon waits on a fallen stone;
No tear, no fear, though he work alone
To make a grave where weeds may grow.
He fingers the sod with a tender care
As if part of the body resting there.
IV
Seasons have furrowed his features deep,
Bark-like and grim as the axe’s food—
His days have grown slow with the growing wood—
Furrows that never smile or weep.
Axe and spade turn light away,
He labors in gloom at bright midday.
Seventy years of months and days
Weigh on his head and bend him down;
His brow with thought has become a frown.
Seldom a smile o’er his wrinkles plays,
For his labor makes him a gloomy lore;
Forgetting no face he has covered o’er.
V
Problems of living are hard to learn;
The duty is clear, reward but a hope;
Philosophy fails beyond life’s dark scope.
The sage is the digger whose dawns return
That he drag the lingering minutes away—
There is no day but the present day.
What work is well when thrust to a close?
Wisdom foretells no hidden good;
Suffering follows the hardihood
Of plunging thus into future woes.
Living, alone, can quench distress;
The moment seized is the one to bless.
Poverty near, and death at his heels,
Simon is rich in the wealth of years;
Working for bread, without joy, without tears,
Till the changeless calm will gently steal
Across his face and will silence his song.
Where riches are equal his rest will be long.
The Diver
LIKE marble, nude, against the purple sky,
In ready poise, the diver scans the sea
Gemming the marsh’s green placidity,
And mirroring the fearless form on high.
Behold the outward leap—he seems to fly!
His arms like arrow-blade just speeded free;
His body like the curving bolt, to be
Deep-driven till the piercing flight shall die.
Sharply the human arrow cleaves the tide,
Only a foaming swell to mark his flight;
While shoreward moves the silent ring on ring.
And now the sea is stirred and broken wide
Before the swimmer’s passage swift and light,
And bears him as a courser bears a king.
Across the Dykes
THE dykes half bare are lying in the bath
Of quivering sunlight on this Sunday morn,
And bobolinks aflock make sweet the worn
Old places, where two centuries of swath
Have fallen to earth before the mower’s path.
Across the dykes the bell’s low sound is borne
From green Grand Pré, abundant with the corn,
With milk and honey which it always hath.—
And now I hear the Angelus ring far;
See faith bow many a head that suffered wrong,
Near all these plains they wrested from the tide!
I see the vision of their final griefs that mar
The greenness of these meadows; in the song
Of birds I feel a tear that has not dried.
The Sonnet
HOW fair thou art the poets long have known;
And I have sought the beauty which is thine
Through many days and nights of cloud and shine,
Until one note of all sweet notes outblown
Has spelled my ear; for dearest things alone
Are found companionless; and the divine
And single inspiration shall entwine
The laurel till it fit the brow of one.
And thou art rare among the things most rare;
The beam consummate of the lights of day;
The fullest note struck from the living flood
Of melody; the gem that has most care
In the kind workman’s hand, till he shall say,
“Thy beauty is the acme of all good.”