An Evening Conversation Poem by Albert Pike

One day last Spring,—one sunny afternoon,—
Lapt in contented indolence, I lay
Within a pillared circle of old trees;
Deep-bedded in the smooth luxurious sward,
That, fed by dropping dew and faithful shade,
Grew green and thick under the stout, strong oaks.
Around me the broad trees kept watch and ward,
Swinging their foreheads slowly in the air,—
Green islets in an eddying overflow
Of amber light. Among the emerald leaves
The broken waves from that enfolding sea
Struggled to reach the young birds in their nests,
As truth strives earnestly to reach the heart,
Often repulsed, yet still endeavouring.
One strip of light lay on the level grass,
Like a thin drift of pearl-snow, tinged with rose.
There I had lain since noon, stretched out at ease,
Reading, by turns, in this and that old book,
Fuller, Montaigne, and good Sir Thomas Browne,
Feltham and Herbert. Mingling with the light,
As in a song mingle two girls' sweet voices,
The song of many a mad bird floated up,
Dazzling my ears, to the high empyrean.
Breaking upon the blue sky's western beach,
Flung upward from the throbbing sea below,
The waves of light and cloud foamed up in spray,
Stained by the sun with all his richest colours,
Sapphire and sardonyx: floating forth, perfumes
From rose and jasmine wandered wide abroad,
Into the meadow, and along the creek,
That dances joyfully along its bed
Of silver sand and pebbles, through the glade.
And like a child, frightened at sudden dusk,
Stops, still as death, under yon dark gray crag,
Of thunder-scarred and overhanging rock,
Where in deep holes lurks the suspicious trout.
The locust-trees, with honey-dropping blooms,
Tempted the bees, that, darting to and fro,
Grew rich apace with their abundant spoil:
And the magnolia, with its sweet perfume,
Within large circle loaded all the air.
My children played around me on the grass,—
Sad rogues, that interrupted much my thought,
And did perplex my reading,—one in chief,
A little chattering girl with bright brown eyes,
Scarce taught to speak distinctly, but my pet,
As she well knew, and of it took advantage.
While there I lay, reading in idle mood,
I heard a step along the shaded walk,
Where the clematis and the climbing rose,
The honeysuckle and the jasmine turned
Their bright eyes to the sun,—an emerald arch,
With golden flowers embroidered. Looking up,
I saw approaching, with his kindly smile,
And outstretched hand, the dearest of my friends,
Who played with me in childhood on the sands,
And on the sounding rocks that fringed the sea,
And on the green banks of the Merrimac;
Grew up with me to manhood, with me left
Our ancient home, and many a weary month,
Fast by my side, still toiled and travelled on,
Through desert, forest, danger, over mountains,
Amid wild storms, deep snows,—bore much fatigue,
Hunger and thirst, bravely and like a man.—
After warm welcome kindly interchanged,
Idly we stretched ourselves upon the sward,
And lightly talked of half a hundred things,
Each with a little head upon his arm,
Whose bright eyes looked as gravely into ours,
As though they understood our large discourse:
Until at length it chanced that Luther said,
Responding to some self-congratulation
That bubbled from the fountain of my heart,
At thinking of my humble, happy life:—
'We are all mariners on this sea of life;
And they who climb above us up the shrouds,
Have only, in their over-topping place,
Gained a more dangerous station, and foothold
More insecure. The wind, that passeth over,
And harmeth not the humble crew below,
Whistleth amid the shrouds, and shaketh down
These overweening climbers of the ocean,
Into the seething waters of the sea.
The humble traveller securely walks
Along green valleys, walled with rocky crags,
Deep-buried vales, in Alps or Apennine,
By Titans sentinelled, yet rich with flowers,
And gushing with cool springs;—a cloudless sun
Lighting his pathway;—while the venturous fool,
Who climbed the neighboring mountain, sees, aghast
The purple drifts of thunder-shaken cloud
Roll foaming over the blue icy crags,
On which his feet slip,— feels the heavy spray
Dash, roaring like a sea, against his side,
And bitterly reprents he climbed so high.
Sharp lightning flashes through the billowy dusk
Of the mad tempest. Through the lonely pines,
Far down below him, howls the exulting wind,—
The thunder crashes round his dizzy head,—
And smitten by the earthquake's mailed hand
The jut whereon he stands gives way, like Power,
And down a thousand fathoms headlong falls
The ambitious climber, a bruised, bloody mass,
Before the peaceful traveller below.
Better a quiet life amid our books,
Than, like mad swimmers in a stormy ocean,
To breast the roar and tumult of the world.'

'I think so, too: and I am well content
To lead a peaceful, quiet, humble life,
Among my children and my patient books.
Disgrace and danger, like two hungry hounds,
Run ever on the track of those who do
Good service to their country, or achieve
Distinction and a name above their fellows.
And slander is an ever-current coin,
Easy of utterance as pure gold, deep-stamped
With the king's image, in the mint of Truth.
What service to his country can one do,
In the wild warfare of the present age?
To gain success, the masses must be swayed;—
To sway the masses, one must be well skilled
And dexterous with the weapons of the trade.
Who fights the gladiator without skill,
Fights without arms. Why! he must lie and cheat
By fair pretences, double and turn at will,
Profess whatever doctrine suits the time,
Juggle and trick with words, in everything
Be a base counterfeit, and fawn and crouch
Upon the level of the baser sort.
I love the truth, because it is the Truth,
And care not whether it be profitable,
Or if the common palate relish it.
Of all things most I hate the Plausible:
An open knave's an open enemy;
But sleek Pretence with the stilletto stabs,
At dusky corners, of a starless night.
The True and Popular are deadly foes,
Ever at dagger's point, in endless feud.
If one could serve his country by success,
Or strengthen her defences, he might well
Endure abuse and bitter contumely,
Slander and persecution; but to fling
One's self down headlong from the vessel's prow,
Into the angry chasms of the deep,
Without a hope to stay the ship's mad course,
Is the profoundest folly of the time.—
Behold how nobly sets the Imperial Sun!
The golden glories of his mellow rays
On the green meadow-level fall aslant;
On either side, the crests of snowy cloud,
With crimson inter-penetrated, shrink
And yield him room: no dusky bar obscures
The broad magnificence of his wide eye;
Though farther south, dark as a cataract
Of thundering waters, a great cloud lets down
Its curtain to the blue horizon's edge;
While, here and there, a wing of snowy foam,
Upon its front, glints like the shining sail
Of some aerial shallop, fleeing swift
Along the surface of the tranquil deep.—
Will truth at any time shine broadly forth,
Even as the sun shines, with no cloud of Error
To intercept a single glorious ray?'
'Truth is omnipotent, and will prevail;
And Public Justice certain.'
'Aye, my friend!
A great man said so. 'T is a noble thought,
Nobly expressed; itself a creed complete.
But in what sense is Truth omnipotent,
And at what time is Public Justice certain?—
Truth will avenge herself, for every wrong,
And for all treason to her majesty,
Upon the nation or the individual,
That doth the wrong, by those grave consequences,
Which do, from falsehood or in deed or word,
By law inflexible result. The cause
Why nations do so often topple down,
Like avalanches, from their eminence,
Why men do slink into disastrous graves,
In the stern sentence hath been well expressed;
'Ye would not know the truth or follow it.
Truth has the power to vindicate itself;
But to convince all men that 't is the truth,
Is far beyond its reach: and public virtue
And public service eminent, are paid,
In life, by obloquy and contumely,
But, after death, by large obsequies,
And monuments and mausolea. Thus
Is public justice certain. We regard
With slight observance and a careless glance,
The Sun that now has closed his radiant eye,
Below the dim horizon's dusky verge,
So long as we behold him in the heavens,
And know that God's Omnipotence compels
His due return. We give no earnest thanks
Of heartfelt gratitude for this great gift
Of light, the largest blessing of them all.—
Lo! he has sunk beneath the glassy sea
Of the broad prairie, whose great emerald lid
Shuts slowly over him. If never more
That glorious orb should rise to light the earth,
Men, staggering blindly through unnatural night,
Would understand the blessing they had lost,
And public justice would be done the Sun.'
'After a long, dark night, a starless night,
In which the thin moon early struggled down
To where the sky and desert met together,
Plunging with hard endeavor through the surf
And spray that gloomed along the tortured heaven,
After a long, dark night of storm and sleet,
The daylight comes with slow and feeble steps.
How imperceptibly the Dawn begins,
After the storm has sobbed itself asleep,
To shine upon the eyelids of the East.
By slow degrees the distant snowy crests
Of the great mountains, where, for age on age,
Tempests have vainly thundered, are discerned
Upheaving their dim heads among the clouds.
The straining eye then makes the contour out
Of the near forests. Then a rosy mist
Spreads like a blush upon the purple clouds
Becoming by degrees a crimson light;
Until, at last, after a weary watch,
Kept by cold voyagers on disastrous seas,
Or storm-vexed travellers on wide desert plains,
The broad sun rushes through the eddying mist,
Flinging it off, as from a frigate's prow
Plash back the sparkling waves. The wakened world,
Gladdened with light, rejoices in her strength,
And men adore the imperatorial Sun.
So shall it be with Truth. Long Ages are
The minutes of her twilight. The white sails
Of the Dawn's boat are crimsoned by her light,
Where it lies rocking near the eastern strand,
Waiting a pilot to assume the helm,
And steer it round the circle of the sky;
For Truth below the horizon lingers yet.
But after you and I are dead and cold,
Our bones all mouldered to a little dust,
Oar monuments all crumbled into clay,
She, like the sun, shall rise and light the world,
Never to set. The humblest man has power
To accelerate her coming; and the words
We speak or write, in that effect shall live
Long after we are gathered to the dead.
Thought shakes the world, as the strong earthquake's tread
Shakes the old mountains and the impatient sea.
Each written word, teaching the humblest truth,
No matter in what homely garb arrayed,
Is one of those uncounted myriad drops
That make the stream of Thought, which first sprung forth
A slender, feeble rill, when all the earth
Was dark as midnight, from the inmost caves
And deep recesses of the human mind,
Where it was born. Think you one drop is lost
Of all by which that stream has grown so great?—
No longer trickling over the gray rocks,
Or foaming over precipice and crag,
It rolls along, a broad, deep, tranquil stream,
Resistless in calm energy and strength,
Through the wide plains,—and feels the giant pulse,
(So near it is to universal power),
Of Ocean throbbing in its great blue heart.
Let us work on!—for surely it is true
That none work faithfully without result.
What if we do not the result perceive?
God sees it; it is present now, to Him:
So that we know our labour is not lost.'
'Content you friend! I shall not cease to work.
I am the harnessed champion of Truth,
Cuirassed and greaved, sworn to her glorious cause,
With Beauty's favor glittering in my helm.
But henceforth I shall labour in the peace
And quietness of my beloved home.
No good is wrought by mingling in the fray
Of party-war. Under these kingly trees,
Encouraged by my children's loving eyes,
Soothed to serene and self-possessed content,
By all the sights and sounds that bless me here,
Will I work ever in her noble cause.
The words of Truth should flow upon the ears
Of the unwilling world, until it heeds:
Even as the crystal waters of our spring,
That, night and day, all seasons of the year,
Indifferent to censure or to praise,
Seen and unseen, singing their quiet tune,
Leap joyfully over its grassy brim,
Starred with bright flowers; rain on the thankful sward,
Where now the almond drops its rosy gems,
And the syringa trails its drooping twigs,
Fringed thickly with its small and snowy blooms;
And murmuring their gratitude to God,
Flow onward, seeking patiently the sea;
Not other now, than when, for many an age,
Primæval forests hid it from all sight,
Save the fond stars; no lip bent down to drink;
And since creation's morning, not an eye
Of man had seen it. 'T is a pregnant lesson.'

'I see its waters gleaming in the light
Of the young moon, and hear the slender sound
Of the stirred pebbles in its narrow bed.
If men would do their duty, like the springs,
Committing the result and their reward
To God, who loveth all, the golden age,
That most delicious fable of old rhyme,
Would come indeed.'

'I, for my single self,
Shall still live on in this, the peaceful calm
And golden ease of my dear humble home:
As in the sheltered harbor of some isle,
Enclosed by southern seas, the storm-worn ship
Escaped the waves, old ocean's hungry hounds,
That cry and chafe without, furls all her sails,
And sleeps within the shadow of the trees,
Rocked by the undulations caused by storm,
That vexes all the ocean round the isle.
Here will I make myself a golden age,
Here live content, and happier than a king.
Nor bird that swings and sleeps in his small nest,
Nor bee that revels in the jasmine-blooms,
Nor humming-bird, that robs the honeysuckle,
Nor cricket, nested under the warm hearth,
Shall sing or work more cheerfully than I.'
With this, the moon, opening one azure lid,
Had sometime poured her light upon the birds,
Among the green leaves of the ancient oaks;
The drops rained thick upon the bright green grass,
From the spring's brim, like a swift silver hail;
The meadow seemed a wide, clear, level lake
Of molten silver, by her alchemy;
The shoulders of the northern mountains glittered
With a new glory, and one splintered peak
Shot up in bold relief against the sky,
With one large star resting upon his crown,
A beacon-light on a Titanic tower.
Around that peak, to north and east stretched out
The line of dusky forest, far away,
Bounding the prairie like a rampart there,
With curtain, bastion, scarp and counterscarp.
The thick stars smiled upon the laughing earth,
As bright and cheerful as a young child's eyes.
The thin leaves, shaken by the southern wind,
Murmured in night's pleased ear. The light dew fell
On bud and flower; and, wakened by the moon,
The locust and the katydid sang loud
And shrill within the shadows of the trees.
While in the thorn-tree, growing near the spring,
Hid in the drifted snow of its white blooms,
The merry mimic of our southern woods
Poured out large waves of gushing melody,
That overflowed the meadow many a rood,
And undulated through the pillared trees.
Our little audience, fallen fast asleep,
Reminded us of home. So we arose,
And slowly walking to the house, there sat
Near the large windows, where the moon shone in
Upon the carpets, and the Spring's warm breath,
Sweet as a girl's, came heavy with perfume;
And, with a bottle of bright, sparkling wine,
From sunny France, and fitful conversation,
Sustained awhile, then dying into silence,
Prolonged our sitting far into the night.