St. Michael the Weigher

 

Stood the tall Archangel weighing

All man's dreaming, doing, saying,

All the failure and the pain,

All the triumph and the gain,

In the unimagined years,

Full of hopes, more full of tears,

Since old Adam's hopeless eyes

Backward searched for Paradise,

And, instead, the flame-blade saw

Of inexorable Law.

Waking, I beheld him there,

With his fire-gold, flickering hair,

In his blinding armor stand,

And the scales were in his hand:

Mighty were they, and full well

They could poise both heaven and Hell.

'Angel,' asked I humbly then,

'Weighest thou the souls of men?

That thine office is, I know.'

'Nay,' he answered me, 'not so;

But I weigh the hope of Man

Since the power of choice began,

In the world, of good or ill.'

Then I waited and was still.

In one scale I saw him place

All the glories of our race,

Cups that lit Belsbazzar's feast,

Gems, the lightning of the East,

Kublai's sceptre, Caesar's sword,

Many a poet's golden word,

Many a skill of science, vain

To make men as gods again.

In the other scale he threw

Things regardless, outcast, few,

Martyr-ash, arena sand,

Of St. Francis' cord a strand,

Beechen cups of men whose need

Fasted that the poor might feed,

Disillusions and despairs

Of young saints with, grief-grayed hairs,

Broken hearts that brake for Man.

Marvel through my pulses ran

Seeing then the beam divine

Swiftly on this hand decline,

While Earth's splendor and renown

Mounted light as thistle-down.

James Russell Lowell

BIO: James Russell Lowell (1819 - 1891) was an American poet and member of the Fireside Poets, whose poetry became as popular and highly-regarded as the well-known British poets of his day. Lowell became an abolitionist, often expressing his political views through his poetry, and was hired to be the editor of an abolitionist newspaper. In 1854, he was appointed Professor of Languages at Harvard University. In 1857, he took the job of editor of The Atlantic Monthly. Twenty years later, he was appointed ambassador to Spain. Later on, he became ambassador to the Court of St. James. Lowell was part of the Romantic Movement in poetry and an expert in linguistics. He served as an inspiration to writers such as Mark Twain and H.L. Mecken because of his love of dialects. Some of his abolitionist poetry was used in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. He died at Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1891.

JUNE

by James Russell Lowell

And what is so rare as a day in June?
   Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
   And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
   An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
   Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
   Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
   The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean
   To be some happy creature’s palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
   Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
   With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, –
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? 

Now is the high tide of the year,
   And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,
   Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
’T is enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,
   That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers we should not lack,
   We could guess it all by yon heifer’s lowing, –
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
   Tells all in his lusty crowing!

BIO: Born in 1819, James Russell Lowell became a member of the Fireside Poets, a New England group of Romantic poets whose popularity rivaled the great British poets of the era. In 1857, he was appointed editor of The Atlantic Monthly. He used his poetry to promote abolitionism and social reform. Lowell died in 1891.

Artwork: "Flaming June" by Sir Frederic Leighton, 1895.