Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Robert Traill SpenceLowell

295 The After-Comers

THOSE earlier men that owned our earth

When land and sea and skies were newer,

Had they, by eldest’s right of birth,

Sea stronger, greener land, sky bluer?

Had what they sang and drew more worth

That bards and painters then were fewer?

Their daisy, oak and rose were new;

Fresh runnels down their valleys babbled;

New were red lip, true eyes, fresh dew;

All dells, all shores, had not been rabbled;

Nor yet the rhyming lovers’ crew

Tree-bark and casement-pane had scrabbled.

Feelings sprang fresh, to them, and thought;

Fresh things were hope, trust, faith, endeavor;

All things were new, wherein men wrought,

And so they had the lead, forever.

To move the world their frank hearts sought

Not even where to set their lever.

Then utterance, like thought, was young,

And, when these yearning two were mated,

What shapes of airy life were flung

Before the world as yet unsated!

Life was in hand; life was in tongue;

Life in whatever they created.

Must then the world to us be stale?

Must we be only after-comers?

Must wilted green and sunshine pale

Make mean all our dear springs and summers?

To those free lords of song and tale

Must we be only tricked-out mummers?

Oh, no! was ever life-blood cold?

Was wit e’er dull, when mirth was in it?

Or when will blushing love be old?

Or thrill of bobolink or linnet?

Are all our blossoms touched with mould?

Lurks not fresh bloom where we may win it?

Yes! Life and strength forevercan;

Life springs afresh through endless ages;

Nor on our true work falls a ban,

That it must halt, at shortened stages:

Throw man into it! man draws man

In canvas, stone, or written pages.