John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Narrative and Legendary PoemsCobbler Keezar’s Vision
T
With patient teeth that day,
The minks were fish-wards, and the crows
Surveyors of highway,—
Upon his cobbler’s form,
With a pan of coals on either hand
To keep his waxed-ends warm.
He stitched and hammered and sung;
In the brook he moistened his leather,
In the pewter mug his tongue.
Who brewed the stoutest ale,
And he paid the goodwife’s reckoning
In the coin of song and tale.
Who dress the hills of vine,
The tales that haunt the Brocken
And whisper down the Rhine.
The swift stream wound away,
Through birches and scarlet maples
Flashing in foam and spray,—
Plunging in steep cascade,
Tossing its white-maned waters
Against the hemlock’s shade.
East and west and north and south;
Only the village of fishers
Down at the river’s mouth;
With its farm-house rude and new,
And tree-stumps, swart as Indians,
Where the scanty harvest grew.
No vintage-song he heard,
And on the green no dancing feet
The merry violin stirred.
“When Nature herself is glad,
And the painted woods are laughing
At the faces so sour and sad?”
What sorrow of heart was theirs
Who travailed in pain with the births of God,
And planted a state with prayers,—
Smiting the heathen horde,—
One hand on the mason’s trowel,
And one on the soldier’s sword!
Give him his pipe and song,
Little he cared for Church or State,
Or the balance of right and wrong.
“And for rest a snuffle of psalms!”
He smote on his leathern apron
With his brown and waxen palms.
Of the days when I was young!
For the merry grape-stained maidens,
And the pleasant songs they sung!
Of apples and nuts and wine!
For an oar to row and a breeze to blow
Down the grand old river Rhine!”
And dropped on his beard so gray.
“Old, old am I,” said Keezar,
“And the Rhine flows far away!”
He could call the birds from the trees,
Charm the black snake out of the ledges,
And bring back the swarming bees.
All the lore of the woods, he knew,
And the arts of the Old World mingled
With the marvels of the New.
And the lapstone on his knee
Had the gift of the Mormon’s goggles
Or the stone of Doctor Dee.
Wrought it with spell and rhyme
From a fragment of mystic moonstone
In the tower of Nettesheim.
The marvellous stone gave he,—
And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar,
Who brought it over the sea.
He held it up like a lens,
And he counted the long years coming
By twenties and by tens.
“And fifty have I told:
Now open the new before me,
And shut me out the old!”
Rolled from the magic stone,
And a marvellous picture mingled
The unknown and the known.
And river and ocean joined;
And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line,
And cold north hills behind.
By many a steepled town,
By many a white-walled farm-house,
And many a garner brown.
The stream no more ran free;
White sails on the winding river,
White sails on the far-off sea.
The flags were floating gay,
And shone on a thousand faces
The light of a holiday.
Turned the brown earth from their shares;
Here were the farmer’s treasures,
There were the craftsman’s wares.
Ruby her currant-wine;
Grand were the strutting turkeys,
Fat were the beeves and swine.
And the ripe pears russet-brown,
And the peaches had stolen blushes
From the girls who shook them down.
That shame the toil of art,
Mingled the gorgeous blossoms
Of the garden’s tropic heart.
“Am I here, or am I there?
Is it a fête at Bingen?
Do I look on Frankfort fair?
And imps with horns and tail?
And where are the Rhenish flagons?
And where is the foaming ale?
Strange things the Lord permits;
But that droughty folk should be jolly
Puzzles my poor old wits.
And the maiden’s step is gay;
Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking,
Nor mopes, nor fools, are they.
And good without abuse,
The holiday and the bridal
Of beauty and of use.
Do the cat and dog agree?
Have they burned the stocks for ovenwood?
Have they cut down the gallows-tree?
Would they own the graceless town,
With never a ranter to worry
And never a witch to drown?”
Laughed like a school-boy gay;
Tossing his arms above him,
The lapstone rolled away.
It spun like a wheel bewitched,
It plunged through the leaning willows,
And into the river pitched.
The magic stone lies still,
Under the leaning willows
In the shadow of the hill.
Sits on the shadowy bank,
And his dreams make marvellous pictures
Where the wizard’s lapstone sank.
When the river seems to run
Out from the inner glory,
Warm with the melted sun,
Beside the charmëd stream,
And the sky and the golden water
Shape and color her dream.
The rosy signals fly;
Her homestead beckons from the cloud,
And love goes sailing by.