Another Neglected Poet

[mono]

Glancing at my bookshelf this afternoon, I reflected somewhat on William Ellery Channing (1818-1901) - a transcendentalist poet and friend to Ralph Waldo Emeron, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, and other minds I greatly admire. In my opinion, he has seemed somewhat neglected among his contemporaries, though he did not write nearly as much as Emerson or Thoreau, for example. I thought to share a few of my favorites from his Poems Of Sixty-Five Years (which I incidentally happened to find a first-edition copy a few years ago).
Channing devoted many of his poems to his fellow companions, one of which, "The Sleeping Child," to Emerson, but I thought to only type out a few, "Sunday Poem" seeming very long, but his most autobiographical (I apologize about the length). Enjoy!

Life

It is a gay and glittering cloud
Born in the early light of day;
It lies upon the gentle hills,
Rosy and sweet and far away.

It burns again when noon is high -
Like molten gold it's clothed in light;
As beautiful and glad as love,
A joyous, soul-entrancing sight.

But now it's fading in the west
As helpless as a withered leaf,
As faint as shadow on the grass
Thrown by the gleam of moonlight brief.

So Life is born, grows up, and dies,
A cloud upon the world of light;
It comes in joy and moves in love,
Then gently fades away in night.

-----

Companionship

My mind obeys the Power
That through all persons breathes;
The woods are murmuring,
And field begin to sing,
And in me Nature wreathes.

Thou too art with me here,
The best of all design;
Of that strong purity
Which makes it joy to be
A distant thought of thine.

-----

Sunday Poem

I

Onward we float along the way
Like straws upon a rapid river.
Changeth the weather every day;
So change our human feelings ever -
Yes, most of them thus change,
And have a wider range,
But there are those no time can sever.

Withers not the sun, my love!
What of thee is mortal now
That was framed in worlds above;
Thy full-thoughted arched brow,
And the light of those clear eyes,
Death and change and Time defies.

The immortal there hath place,
Gladly sits upon thy frame,
Lurketh in they sunny face,
In a wildness none can tame.

II

Away! the night is dark and drear;
Loud howls the storm, the clouds uproar,
And chill as broken love the atmosphere.
Away! thee, Nature, I can woo no more:
Thou art at war, and naught at rest;
With thee I never can be blest.

Thy whirling seas my feelings jar,
Thy weeping winds and twilight cold;
Thy ways my seekings idly mar,
And I was in my youth-time old.
Thou didst set a glowing stone
In a golden belt alone,-
To me thou sayest: "This treasure thine -
It is the richest thing of mine."

III

I stood amazed; my blood o'erran
Its usual channels, till me veins
Would burst; I was again a man;
Ending was here of all those pains -
Those cold, chill pains that crept about my way,
Those hidden shadows in the light of Day.
What! no more of them to see!
Chains were off and roaming free!

Then cried I to the corners of the Earth:
"It cannot be - ye mock at my despair!
For I was destined from my earliest birth
To be beloved by nothing sweet or fair:
And I have made my bed, and now am heir
To all that blackens and has naught of mirth.

"I tell you, sudden fates which come to me,
Ye are not faithful! Hear: my mother died
Before I clasped her, and that parent's knee
Me never knew - my tears she never dried;
But with the unknown upward then I grew,
Far from all that which was to me most true."

That early life was bitter oft;
And like a flower whose roots are dry
I withered; for my feelings soft
Were by my brothers passed by.
Storm-wind fell on me,
Dark clouds lowered on me;
Many ghosts swept trembling past;
Cold looks in my eyes they cast.

IV

Older I grew then, but I was not more
Joy's child than in those earlier, other hours;
It was the same unyielding penance o'er.
My crown was not of thorns, but withered flowers,
Dry buds, and half blown roses dry with dust;
Thorns had been glorious, glorious by their side,
For in their frantic pain there rises trust,
While these are phantoms of what may have died.
I see ye still around me;
Why is it said! To sadden!
That there is some joy for me!
Ah! think you me to gladden!

Sang the voice sweetly: "We say what we say;
There is joy in thy cup, there is sun in they day."
I groaned aloud: "Alas, they mock!
Stood other form in other years,-
Her song, - then came the lightning's shock,
And the sharp fire of those wild tears;
I carry them within, on many biers.
I stand like one who came to sing with those
That sang so sweetly, all of love and joy;
Their voices yet! - while I am hung with woes;
Life comes to me, yet comes but to destroy."

V

Then spoke the Spirit of the Earth,
Her gentle voice like gliding water's song:
"None from my loins have ever birth
But they to joy and love belong;
I faithful am, and give to thee
Blessings great - and give them free.

"I have woven shrouds of air
In a loom of hurrying light,
For the trees which blossoms bear,
And gilded them with sheets of bright:
I fall upon the grass like love's first kiss,
I make the golden flies and their fine bliss.

"I paint the hedgerows in the lane,
And clover white and red the pathways bear;
I laugh aloud in sudden gusts of rain
To see the Ocean lash himself in air;
I throw smooth shells and weeds along the beach,
And pour the curling waves far o'er the glassy reach;
Swing birds' nests in the elms, and shake cool moss
Along the aged beams, and hide their loss.

"The very broad rough stones I gladden, too -
Some willing seeds I drop along their sides,
Nourish the generous plant with freshening dew,
Till there where all was waste true joy abides.
The peaks of aged mountains, with my care,
Smile in the red of glowing morn, elate;
I bind the caverns of the sea with hair
Glossy and long, and rich as king's estate;
I polish the green ice, and gleam the wall
With whitening frost, and leaf the brown trees tall.

VI

"Thee not along I leave - far more
Weave I for thee than for the air;
Thou art of greater worth than the sea-shore,
And yet for it how much do I prepare!
I love thee better than the trees -
Yet I have them sun and breeze;
More than rivers thou to me;
More I shall be giving thee;
Tears of thin I'll dry fore'er,
To thee joys and blisses bear.

"Believe thy Mother for her worth
(And thou art a song of Earth).
Thou hadst many years of woe;
Life was many times thy foe;
But the stars have looked from where
Hang their sparklets in the air,
And their faith is pledged to me
That they shall give joy to thee."

VII

It cam upon me in a sudden thrill,
It stood before - 'twas a thing of life.
The thoughts rushed out; I had not form nor will;
I was in hurrying trance, yet felt no strife.

I laughed aloud - Death had crept back awhile;
I looked abroad - the sunlight seemed to smile.
Joy, joy! was now the song,
Like a torrent crowding strong
To the endless Sea along.
She stood before me in that veil of form
(The stars' first light, dropt from an urn of air);
Within her eyes there melted sunlight warm,
Which its soft heat did with the moonbeam share;
The gushing of her smile was like a stream
Which, when all round was crisped with feathery snow,
Went surging through the drear its liquid dream,
In sweet dissolved style, as angels know.
The spell that dwelt within each faintest word
Was Love - the first my eager ear had heard.
She stood before me, and her life sank through
My withering heart as doth the piercing dew,
That sinks with quivering tenderness within
The moss-rose breast - till it to ope doth win.

VIII

'Twas so - 'twas thine! Earth, thou wert true!
I kneel - thy grateful child, I kneel;
Thy full forgiveness for my sins I sue.
O Mother! learn thy sons can think and feel.
Mother dear! wilt pardon one
Who loved not the generous sun,
Nor thy seasons loved to hear
Chanting to the busy year;
Thee neglected, shut his heart -
In thy being had no part!
Mother! now I list thy song
In this autumn eve along,
As thy chill airs round the day,
Leaving me my time to pray.

Mother dear! the day must come
When thy child shall make his home -
My long, last home - 'mid the grass
Over which thy warm hands pass.
Ah me! then do let me lie
Gently on thy breast to die!

I know my prayers will reach thine ear -
Thou art with me while I ask;
Nor thy child refuse to hear,
Who would learn his little task.
Let me take my part with thee
In the gray clouds, or the light -
Laugh with thee upon the sea,
Or idle on the land by night;
In the trees will I with thee -
In the flowers, like any bee.

IX

I feel it shall be so; we were not born
To sink our finer feelings in the dust;
Far better to the grave with feelings torn -
So in our step strides Truth and honest trust
In the great love of things - than to be slaves
To forms - whose ringing side each stroke we give
Stamps with a hollower void; - yes, to our graves
Hurrying or e'er we in the heavens' look live
Strangers to our best hopes, and fearing men,
Yea, fearing death - and to be born again.

-----

The Sleeping Child

Darkness now hath overpaced
Life's swift dance; and curtained Awe
Feebly lifts a sunken eye,
Wonted to this gloomy law.
Lips are still that sweetly spoke;
Heedless Death the spell hath broke.

Weep not for him, friends so dear!
Largest measure he hath taken.
Now he roams the sun's dominion,
Our chill fortunes quite forsaken;
There his eyes have purer sight
In that calm, reflected light.

Let your tears dissolve in peace!
For he holds high company;
And he seeks, with famous men,
Statelier lines of ancestry;
He shall shame the wisest ones
In that palace of the suns.

[Ancestor]

Thanks Mono, did not get to read all of it yet but will finish later. He hits home for me in some ways but I do enjoy seeing people's work that I never heard about before. Thank you for showing his work to us.

[Tennessee_Angel]

I agree with you mono. His poetry is close to my heart. I am an insomniac, I guess like most of you. My mind never rests. Even when my body sleeps, my mind dreams. This poem of William Ellery Channing descibes what I feel.

The Restless Mind

By the bleak wild hill,
Or the deep lake still,
In the silent grain
On the upland plain,
I would that the unsparing Storm might rage,
And blot with gloom the fair day's sunny page.

The lightning's gleam
Should gentle seem,
The thunder's blow
Both soft and low,
For now the world hath fill of summer weather,
Ye shining days thy throng you thus together.

I am possesst
With strange Unrest,
My feelings jar.
My heart is war,
A spirit dances in my dreams to-day.
I am too cold, for its strange, sunny play.

Then hurry down
With angry frown,
Thou sudden storm
come fierce and warm,
And splinter trees and whistle o'er the moor,
For in thy Bravery I can life endure.

That is what poetry means to me..A feeling or emotion that can be passed from generation to generation, helping others see that we were not alone.

[rachel]

William Ellery Channing. I shall remember him now forever. Thank you very much. I felt my emotions being seared as if by a hot iron as I read on. What a deeply emotional and sensitive being he seems to have been. A tiny lustrous perfect twinkle in a vast black night sky.
I believe that in any good prose or poetry something timeless, something divine as it were reaches from one heart to the other through the generations binding our hearts together in a wondrous beautiful tapestry.
It was a pleasure to read these poems.

"For never was there a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo." Shakespeare

[mono]

I believe that in any good prose or poetry something timeless, something divine as it were reaches from one heart to the other through the generations binding our hearts together in a wondrous beautiful tapestry.
It was a pleasure to read these poems.
Beautiful analogy, rachel, and I express my gratitude that you enjoyed Channing's poetry. Along with his fellow transcendentalists and the earlier and, then, contemporary Romanticists, his work binds my mind to the pages in a way I cannot describe to the point where I can only express the most immense reverence and respect.
Unfortunately, Channing had a fairly rough life, especially in childhood, when his mother died at a very early age, but obviously this did not subtract from his creative genius. Much of his poetry in his Poems Of Sixty-Five Years reads similar to the poems I posted, for anyone interested. Maybe, with some spare time, I will type out a few more of his works.

[rachel]

Beautiful analogy, rachel, and I express my gratitude that you enjoyed Channing's poetry. Along with his fellow transcendentalists and the earlier and, then, contemporary Romanticists, his work binds my mind to the pages in a way I cannot describe to the point where I can only express the most immense reverence and respect.
Unfortunately, Channing had a fairly rough life, especially in childhood, when his mother died at a very early age, but obviously this did not subtract from his creative genius. Much of his poetry in his Poems Of Sixty-Five Years reads similar to the poems I posted, for anyone interested. Maybe, with some spare time, I will type out a few more of his works.
Dear Mono,
Please do if you get the time. I have not quit thinking about the feeling I still have of walking through the woods with the wind lifting the leaves and seeming to go straight through my body to my heart and blowing upon it as well.
My son just got home from work and he is a poet like I have rarely read, he is just getting his work ready for publishing. I read what you wrote and I could see how moved he was.We are both grateful to you.

I saw within Its depth how It conceives
all things in a single volume bound by Love
of which the universe is the scattered leaves. Paradiso by Dante

[mono]

Well, that spare time came around, and I typed out a few more poems by William Ellery Channing for you, Ancestor, Tennessee_Angel, rachel, and whoever reads this. And, to you poet-son, rachel, I send my highest regards, wishing him the best of luck, and to never run out of inspiration, for it lies everywhere.

To-morrow And To-morrow And To-morrow

To-morrow comes! dost say, my Friend, "To-morrow"!
Far down below those pines the sunset flings,
Long arching o'er, its lines of ruddy light;
And the wind murmurs little harmonies,
And underneath their wings the tender birds
Droop their averted heads - silent their song.

But not a word whispers the moaning wind -
Not when in faint array the primal stars
Trail with the banners of the unfurled Night;
Nor even when the low-hung moon just glints,
And faintly, with few touches, sears the wood;
Not there, not then, doth Nature idly say,
Nor whisper idly of another day;
That other morn itself its morrow is;
That other day shall see no shade of this.

-----

The Evening Of A November Day

Thee, mild autumnal Day,
I felt not for myself; the winds may steal
From any point, and seem to me alike
Reviving, soothing powers.

Like thee the contrast is
Of a new mood in a decaying man,
Whose idle mind is suddenly revived
With many pleasant thoughts.

Our earth was gratified;
Fresh grass, a stranger in this frosty time,
Peeped from the crumbling mould, as welcome as
An unexpected friend.

How glowed the evening star!
As it delights to glow in summer's midst,
When out of ruddy boughs the twilight birds
Sing flowing harmony.

Peace was the will to-day;
Love, in bewildering growth, our joyous minds
Swelled to their widest bounds; the Worldy left
All hearts to sympathize.

I felt for Thee - for Thee,
Whose inward, outward life completely moves,
Surrendered to the beauty of the soul,
On this creative day.

-----

Death

Beneath the endless surges of the deep,
Whose green content o'erlaps them evermore,
A host of mariners perpetual sleep,
Too hushed to heed the wild commotion's roar;
The emerald weeds glide softly o'er their bones,
And wash them gently 'mid the rounded stones.

No epitaph have they to tell their tale;
Their birthplace, age, and story all are lost;
Yet rest they deeply as, within this vale,
These sheltered bodies by the smooth slates crossed;
And countless tribes of men lie on the hills,
And human blood runs in the crystal rills.

The air is full of men who once enjoyed
The healthy element, nor looked beyond;
Many who all their mortal strength employed
In human kindness, of their brothers fond;
Any many more who counteracted fate,
And battled in the strife of common hate.

Profoundest sleep enwraps them all around -
Sages and sires, the child and manhood strong:
Shed not one tear, expend no sorrowing sound!
Tune thy clear voice to no funereal song!
For Death stands there to welcome thee and me,
And Life hath yet a steeper mystery.

O Death! thou art the palace of our hopes,
The storehouse of our joys, great labor's end;
Thou art the bronzed key which swiftly opes
The coffers of the Past; and thou shalt send
Such trophies to our hearts as sunny days,
When Life upon its golden harpstrings plays.

And when a nation mourns a silent voice
That long entranced its ear with melody,
How must thou in thy inmost soul rejoice
To wrap such treasures in thy boundless sea!
And thou wert dignified if but one soul
Had been enfolded in thy twilight stole.

Triumphal arches circle o'er thy deep,
Dazzling with jewels, radiant with content;
In thy vast arms the sons of genius sleep -
The carvings of their spheral monument.
Bearing no recollection of dim Time
Within thy green and most perennial prime.

Thou art not anxious of thy precious fame,
But comest like the clouds, soft stealing on;
Thou soundest in a careless key his name
Who to thy boundless treasury is won;
And yet he quickly cometh; for to die
Is ever gentlest, both to low and high.

Thou therefore hast Humanity's respect;
They build thee tombs along the green hillside,
And will not suffer thee the least neglect,
But tend thee with a desolate, sad pride:
For thou art strong, O Death! though sweetly so,
And in thy lovely gentleness sleeps woe.

I come - I come! think not I turn away!
Fold round me thy gray robe! I stand to feel
The setting of my last frail, earthly day:
I will not pluck it off, but calmly kneel.
For I am great as thou art, - though not thou, -
And Thought, as with thee, dwells upon my brow.

Ah! might I ask thee, Spirit, first to tend
Upon those dear ones whom my heart has found!
And supplicate thee that I might them lend
A light in their last hours, and to the ground
Consign them still! Yet think me not too weak -
Come to me now, and thou shalt find me meek.

Then let us live in fellowship with thee;
Turn ruddy cheeks unto thy kisses pale,
And listen to thy song as minstrelsy,
And still revere thee, till our heart-throbs fail:
Sinking within thine arms as sinks the sun
Below the farthest hills when his day's work is done.

[subterranean]

Personally, I do neglect Channing's works since I'm not familiar with them :). However, I think between poets in his era, he was not neglected at all, since I read that Tocqueville praised him as one of the most celebrated and remarkable preacher and author. Of course I could be wrong, as I said I'm not that familiar with the poet :). Yet, after reading the poems that Mono posted, I can't agree more with everyone here that his works are indeed wonderful.

[B-Mental]

I agree with you mono. His poetry is close to my heart. I am an insomniac, I guess like most of you. My mind never rests. Even when my body sleeps, my mind dreams. This poem of William Ellery Channing descibes what I feel.

The Restless Mind

By the bleak wild hill,
Or the deep lake still,
In the silent grain
On the upland plain,
I would that the unsparing Storm might rage,
And blot with gloom the fair day's sunny page.

The lightning's gleam
Should gentle seem,
The thunder's blow
Both soft and low,
For now the world hath fill of summer weather,
Ye shining days thy throng you thus together.

I am possesst
With strange Unrest,
My feelings jar.
My heart is war,
A spirit dances in my dreams to-day.
I am too cold, for its strange, sunny play.

Then hurry down
With angry frown,
Thou sudden storm
come fierce and warm,
And splinter trees and whistle o'er the moor,
For in thy Bravery I can life endure.

That is what poetry means to me..A feeling or emotion that can be passed from generation to generation, helping others see that we were not alone.

A little bit of information for you, Insomnia is often times determined to be a symptom of bipolar disorder. Many people afflicted with this are often found to have highly creative imaginations and above average vocabulary. Often times when you read a very sad poem, it is in a turbulent depression or mania the poet is working.