Sonnets and Canzonets

And ardent, all-embracing charity.

“Philosophy does not look into pedigrees. She did not receive Plato as noble, but she made him such. ”

    Seneca.

XII

Interpreter of the Pure Reason’s laws,
And all the obligations Thought doth owe
These high ambassadors of her great cause;
Philosopher! whose rare discernments show
Apt mastery of her surpassing skill,
And why each thought and thing is inly so
Conceived and fashioned in the plastic Will;
Thou Reason’s canons dost so well maintain,
With such adhesive and sincere regard,
That every deviator seeks in vain
To escape thy apprehension; evil-starred,
With Dante’s sophisters they writhe in pain.
Then from thy judgment-seat, dismissed with ruth,
Thou lead’st the stumblers in the way of truth.

“Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Loved the wild rose and left it on its stalk?
At rich men’s tables eaten bread and pulse?
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust?
And loved so well a high behavior,
In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained,
Nobility more nobly to repay?
Oh, be my friend, and teach me to be thine!”

    Emerson.

XIII

Who nearer Nature’s life would truly come
Must nearest come to him of whom I speak;
He all kinds knew, – the vocal and the dumb;
Masterful in genius was he, and unique,
Patient, sagacious, tender, frolicsome.
This Concord Pan would oft his whistle take,
And forth from wood and fen, field, hill, and lake,
Trooping around him, in their several guise,
The shy inhabitants their haunts forsake:
Then he, like Esop, man would satirize,
Hold up the image wild to clearest view
Of undiscerning manhood’s puzzled eyes,
And mocking say, “Lo! mirrors here for you:
Be true as these, if ye would be more wise.”

“The happy man who lived content
With his own town and continent,
Whose chiding stream its banks did curb
As ocean circumscribes its orb,
Round which, when he his walks did take,
Thought he performed far more than Drake:
For other lands he took less thought,
Than this his Muse and landscape brought.”

    Evelyn.

XIV

Much do they wrong our Henry, wise and kind,
Morose who name thee, cynical to men,
Forsaking manners civil and refined
To build thyself in Walden woods a den, —
Then flout society, flatter the rude hind.
We better knew thee, loyal citizen!
Thou, friendship’s all-adventuring pioneer,
Civility itself didst civilize:
Whilst braggart boors, wavering ’twixt rage and fear,
Slave hearths lay waste, and Indian huts surprise,
And swift the Martyr’s gibbet would uprear:
Thou hail’dst him great whose valorous emprise
Orion’s blazing belt dimmed in the sky, —
Then bowed thy unrepining head to die.

“Happy art thou whom God doth bless
With the full choice of thine own happiness;
And happier yet, because thou’rt blest
With prudence how to choose the best:
In books and gardens thou hast placed aright—
Things well which thou dost understand,
And both dost make with thy laborious hand—
Thy noble, innocent delight.

Methinks I see great Diocletian walk
In the Salonian gardens noble shade,
Which by his own imperial hands was made;
I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk
With the ambassadors, who come in vain
To entice him to a throne again.”

    Cowley’s Ode to Evelyn.

XV

Whilst from the cloistered schools rushed forth in view