The springtime's pallid landscapeWill glow like bright bouquet,Though drifted deep in parianThe village lies to-day.
The lilacs, bending many a year,With purple load will hang;The bees will not forget the tuneTheir old forefathers sang.
The rose will redden in the bog,The aster on the hillHer everlasting fashion set,And covenant gentians frill,
Till summer folds her miracleAs women do their gown,Or priests adjust the symbolsWhen sacrament is done.
She slept beneath a treeRemembered but by me.I touched her cradle mute;She recognized the foot,Put on her carmine suit, —And see!
A light exists in springNot present on the yearAt any other period.When March is scarcely here
A color stands abroadOn solitary hillsThat science cannot overtake,But human nature feels.
It waits upon the lawn;It shows the furthest treeUpon the furthest slope we know;It almost speaks to me.
Then, as horizons step,Or noons report away,Without the formula of sound,It passes, and we stay:
A quality of lossAffecting our content,As trade had suddenly encroachedUpon a sacrament.
A lady red upon the hillHer annual secret keeps;A lady white within the fieldIn placid lily sleeps!
The tidy breezes with their broomsSweep vale, and hill, and tree!Prithee, my pretty housewives!Who may expected be?
The neighbors do not yet suspect!The woods exchange a smile —Orchard, and buttercup, and bird —In such a little while!
And yet how still the landscape stands,How nonchalant the wood,As if the resurrectionWere nothing very odd!
Dear March, come in!How glad I am!I looked for you before.Put down your hat —You must have walked —How out of breath you are!Dear March, how are you?And the rest?Did you leave Nature well?Oh, March, come right upstairs with me,I have so much to tell!
I got your letter, and the birds';The maples never knewThat you were coming, — I declare,How red their faces grew!But, March, forgive me —And all those hillsYou left for me to hue;There was no purple suitable,You took it all with you.
Who knocks? That April!Lock the door!I will not be pursued!He stayed away a year, to callWhen I am occupied.But trifles look so trivialAs soon as you have come,That blame is just as dear as praiseAnd praise as mere as blame.
We like March, his shoes are purple,He is new and high;Makes he mud for dog and peddler,Makes he forest dry;Knows the adder's tongue his coming,And begets her spot.Stands the sun so close and mightyThat our minds are hot.News is he of all the others;Bold it were to dieWith the blue-birds buccaneeringOn his British sky.
Not knowing when the dawn will comeI open every door;Or has it feathers like a bird,Or billows like a shore?
A murmur in the trees to note,Not loud enough for wind;A star not far enough to seek,Nor near enough to find;
A long, long yellow on the lawn,A hubbub as of feet;Not audible, as ours to us,But dapperer, more sweet;
A hurrying home of little menTo houses unperceived, —All this, and more, if I should tell,Would never be believed.
Of robins in the trundle bedHow many I espyWhose nightgowns could not hide the wings,Although I heard them try!
But then I promised ne'er to tell;How could I break my word?So go your way and I'll go mine, —No fear you'll miss the road.
Morning is the place for dew,Corn is made at noon,After dinner light for flowers,Dukes for setting sun!
To my quick ear the leaves conferred;The bushes they were bells;I could not find a privacyFrom Nature's sentinels.
In cave if I presumed to hide,The walls began to tell;Creation seemed a mighty crackTo make me visible.
A sepal, petal, and a thornUpon a common summer's morn,A flash of dew, a bee or two,A breezeA caper in the trees, —And I'm a rose!
High from the earth I heard a bird;He trod upon the treesAs he esteemed them trifles,And then he spied a breeze,And situated softlyUpon a pile of windWhich in a perturbationNature had left behind.A joyous-going fellowI gathered from his talk,Which both of benedictionAnd badinage partook,Without apparent burden,I learned, in leafy woodHe was the faithful fatherOf a dependent brood;And this untoward transportHis remedy for care, —A contrast to our respites.How different we are!
The spider as an artistHas never been employedThough his surpassing meritIs freely certified
By every broom and BridgetThroughout a Christian land.Neglected son of genius,I take thee by the hand.
What mystery pervades a well!The water lives so far,Like neighbor from another worldResiding in a jar.
The grass does not appear afraid;I often wonder heCan stand so close and look so boldAt what is dread to me.
Related somehow they may be, —The sedge stands next the sea,Where he is floorless, yet of fearNo evidence gives he.
But nature is a stranger yet;The ones that cite her mostHave never passed her haunted house,Nor simplified her ghost.
To pity those that know her notIs helped by the regretThat those who know her, know her lessThe nearer her they get.
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, —One clover, and a bee,And revery.The revery alone will doIf bees are few.
It's like the light, —A fashionless delightIt's like the bee, —A dateless melody.
It's like the woods,Private like breeze,Phraseless, yet it stirsThe proudest trees.
It's like the morning, —Best when it's done, —The everlasting clocksChime noon.
A dew sufficed itselfAnd satisfied a leaf,And felt, 'how vast a destiny!How trivial is life!'
The sun went out to work,The day went out to play,But not again that dew was seenBy physiognomy.
Whether by day abducted,Or emptied by the sunInto the sea, in passing,Eternally unknown.
His bill an auger is,His head, a cap and frill.He laboreth at every tree, —A worm his utmost goal.
Sweet is the swamp with its secrets,Until we meet a snake;'T is then we sigh for houses,And our departure takeAt that enthralling gallopThat only childhood knows.A snake is summer's treason,And guile is where it goes.
Could I but ride indefinite,As doth the meadow-bee,And visit only where I liked,And no man visit me,
And flirt all day with buttercups,And marry whom I may,And dwell a little everywhere,Or better, run away
With no police to follow,Or chase me if I do,Till I should jump peninsulasTo get away from you, —
I said, but just to be a beeUpon a raft of air,And row in nowhere all day long,And anchor off the bar,—What liberty! So captives deemWho tight in dungeons are.
The moon was but a chin of goldA night or two ago,And now she turns her perfect faceUpon the world below.
Her forehead is of amplest blond;Her cheek like beryl stone;Her eye unto the summer dewThe likest I have known.
Her lips of amber never part;But what must be the smileUpon her friend she could bestowWere such her silver will!
And what a privilege to beBut the remotest star!For certainly her way might passBeside your twinkling door.
Her bonnet is the firmament,The universe her shoe,The stars the trinkets at her belt,Her dimities of blue.
The bat is dun with wrinkled wingsLike fallow article,And not a song pervades his lips,Or none perceptible.
His small umbrella, quaintly halved,Describing in the airAn arc alike inscrutable, —Elate philosopher!
Deputed from what firmamentOf what astute abode,Empowered with what malevolenceAuspiciously withheld.
To his adroit CreatorAscribe no less the praise;Beneficent, believe me,His eccentricities.
You've seen balloons set, haven't you?So stately they ascendIt is as swans discarded youFor duties diamond.
Their liquid feet go softly outUpon a sea of blond;They spurn the air as 't were too meanFor creatures so renowned.
Their ribbons just beyond the eye,They struggle some for breath,And yet the crowd applauds below;They would not encore death.
The gilded creature strains and spins,Trips frantic in a tree,Tears open her imperial veinsAnd tumbles in the sea.
The crowd retire with an oathThe dust in streets goes down,And clerks in counting-rooms observe,''T was only a balloon.'
The cricket sang,And set the sun,And workmen finished, one by one,Their seam the day upon.
The low grass loaded with the dew,The twilight stood as strangers doWith hat in hand, polite and new,To stay as if, or go.
A vastness, as a neighbor, came, —A wisdom without face or name,A peace, as hemispheres at home, —And so the night became.
Drab habitation of whom?Tabernacle or tomb,Or dome of worm,Or porch of gnome,Or some elf's catacomb?
A sloop of amber slips awayUpon an ether sea,And wrecks in peace a purple tar,The son of ecstasy.
Of bronze and blazeThe north, to-night!So adequate its forms,So preconcerted with itself,So distant to alarms, —An unconcern so sovereignTo universe, or me,It paints my simple spiritWith tints of majesty,Till I take vaster attitudes,And strut upon my stem,Disdaining men and oxygen,For arrogance of them.
My splendors are menagerie;But their competeless showWill entertain the centuriesWhen I am, long ago,An island in dishonored grass,Whom none but daisies know.
How the old mountains drip with sunset,And the brake of dun!How the hemlocks are tipped in tinselBy the wizard sun!
How the old steeples hand the scarlet,Till the ball is full, —Have I the lip of the flamingoThat I dare to tell?
Then, how the fire ebbs like billows,Touching all the grassWith a departing, sapphire feature,As if a duchess pass!
How a small dusk crawls on the villageTill the houses blot;And the odd flambeaux no men carryGlimmer on the spot!
Now it is night in nest and kennel,And where was the wood,Just a dome of abyss is noddingInto solitude! —
These are the visions baffled Guido;Titian never told;Domenichino dropped the pencil,Powerless to unfold.
The murmuring of bees has ceased;But murmuring of somePosterior, prophetic,Has simultaneous come, —
The lower metres of the year,When nature's laugh is done, —The Revelations of the bookWhose Genesis is June.
This world is not conclusion;A sequel stands beyond,Invisible, as music,But positive, as sound.It beckons and it baffles;Philosophies don't know,And through a riddle, at the last,Sagacity must go.To guess it puzzles scholars;To gain it, men have shownContempt of generations,And crucifixion known.
We learn in the retreatingHow vast an oneWas recently among us.A perished sun
Endears in the departureHow doubly moreThan all the golden presenceIt was before!
They say that 'time assuages,' —Time never did assuage;An actual suffering strengthens,As sinews do, with age.
Time is a test of trouble,But not a remedy.If such it prove, it prove tooThere was no malady.
We cover thee, sweet face.Not that we tire of thee,But that thyself fatigue of us;Remember, as thou flee,We follow thee untilThou notice us no more,And then, reluctant, turn awayTo con thee o'er and o'er,And blame the scanty loveWe were content to show,Augmented, sweet, a hundred foldIf thou would'st take it now.
That is solemn we have ended, —Be it but a play,Or a glee among the garrets,Or a holiday,
Or a leaving home; or later,Parting with a worldWe have understood, for betterStill it be unfurled.
The stimulus, beyond the graveHis countenance to see,Supports me like imperial dramsAfforded royally.
Given in marriage unto thee,Oh, thou celestial host!Bride of the Father and the Son,Bride of the Holy Ghost!
Other betrothal shall dissolve,Wedlock of will decay;Only the keeper of this sealConquers mortality.
That such have died enables usThe tranquiller to die;That such have lived, certificateFor immortality.
They won't frown always, — some sweet dayWhen I forget to tease,They'll recollect how cold I looked,And how I just said 'please.'
Then they will hasten to the doorTo call the little child,Who cannot thank them, for the iceThat on her lisping piled.
It is an honorable thought,And makes one lift one's hat,As one encountered gentlefolkUpon a daily street,
That we've immortal place,Though pyramids decay,And kingdoms, like the orchard,Flit russetly away.
The distance that the dead have goneDoes not at first appear;Their coming back seems possibleFor many an ardent year.
And then, that we have followed themWe more than half suspect,So intimate have we becomeWith their dear retrospect.
How dare the robins sing,When men and women hearWho since they went to their accountHave settled with the year! —Paid all that life had earnedIn one consummate bill,And now, what life or death can doIs immaterial.Insulting is the sunTo him whose mortal light,Beguiled of immortality,Bequeaths him to the night.In deference to himExtinct be every hum,Whose garden wrestles with the dew,At daybreak overcome!
Death is like the insectMenacing the tree,Competent to kill it,But decoyed may be.
Bait it with the balsam,Seek it with the knife,Baffle, if it cost youEverything in life.
Then, if it have burrowedOut of reach of skill,Ring the tree and leave it, —'T is the vermin's will.
'T is sunrise, little maid, hast thouNo station in the day?'T was not thy wont to hinder so, —Retrieve thine industry.
'T is noon, my little maid, alas!And art thou sleeping yet?The lily waiting to be wed,The bee, dost thou forget?
My little maid, 't is night; alas,That night should be to theeInstead of morning! Hadst thou broachedThy little plan to me,Dissuade thee if I could not, sweet,I might have aided thee.
Each that we lose takes part of us;A crescent still abides,Which like the moon, some turbid night,Is summoned by the tides.
Not any higher stands the graveFor heroes than for men;Not any nearer for the childThan numb three-score and ten.
This latest leisure equal lullsThe beggar and his queen;Propitiate this democratBy summer's gracious mien.
As far from pity as complaint,As cool to speech as stone,As numb to revelationAs if my trade were bone.
As far from time as history,As near yourself to-dayAs children to the rainbow's scarf,Or sunset's yellow play
To eyelids in the sepulchre.How still the dancer lies,While color's revelations break,And blaze the butterflies!
'T is whiter than an Indian pipe,'T is dimmer than a lace;No stature has it, like a fog,When you approach the place.
Not any voice denotes it here,Or intimates it there;A spirit, how doth it accost?What customs hath the air?
This limitless hyperboleEach one of us shall be;'T is drama, if (hypothesis)It be not tragedy!
She laid her docile crescent down,And this mechanic stoneStill states, to dates that have forgot,The news that she is gone.
So constant to its stolid trust,The shaft that never knew,It shames the constancy that fledBefore its emblem flew.
Bless God, he went as soldiers,His musket on his breast;Grant, God, he charge the bravestOf all the martial blest.
Please God, might I behold himIn epauletted white,I should not fear the foe then,I should not fear the fight.
Immortal is an ample wordWhen what we need is by,But when it leaves us for a time,'T is a necessity.
Of heaven above the firmest proofWe fundamental know,Except for its marauding hand,It had been heaven below.
Where every bird is bold to go,And bees abashless play,The foreigner before he knocksMust thrust the tears away.
The grave my little cottage is,Where, keeping house for thee,I make my parlor orderly,And lay the marble tea,
For two divided, briefly,A cycle, it may be,Till everlasting life uniteIn strong society.
This was in the white of the year,That was in the green,Drifts were as difficult then to thinkAs daisies now to be seen.
Looking back is best that is left,Or if it be before,Retrospection is prospect's half,Sometimes almost more.
Sweet hours have perished here;This is a mighty room;Within its precincts hopes have played, —Now shadows in the tomb.
Me! Come! My dazzled faceIn such a shining place!
Me! Hear! My foreign earThe sounds of welcome near!
The saints shall meetOur bashful feet.
My holiday shall beThat they remember me;
My paradise, the fameThat they pronounce my name.
From us she wandered now a year,Her tarrying unknown;If wilderness prevent her feet,Or that ethereal zone
No eye hath seen and lived,We ignorant must be.We only know what time of yearWe took the mystery.
I wish I knew that woman's name,So, when she comes this way,To hold my life, and hold my ears,For fear I hear her say
She's 'sorry I am dead,' again,Just when the grave and IHave sobbed ourselves almost to sleep, —Our only lullaby.
Bereaved of all, I went abroad,No less bereaved to beUpon a new peninsula, —The grave preceded me,
Obtained my lodgings ere myself,And when I sought my bed,The grave it was, reposed uponThe pillow for my head.
I waked, to find it first awake,I rose, — it followed me;I tried to drop it in the crowd,To lose it in the sea,
In cups of artificial drowseTo sleep its shape away, —The grave was finished, but the spadeRemained in memory.
I felt a funeral in my brain,And mourners, to and fro,Kept treading, treading, till it seemedThat sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,A service like a drumKept beating, beating, till I thoughtMy mind was going numb.
And then I heard them lift a box,And creak across my soulWith those same boots of lead, again.Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,And Being but an ear,And I and silence some strange race,Wrecked, solitary, here.
I meant to find her when I came;Death had the same design;But the success was his, it seems,And the discomfit mine.
I meant to tell her how I longedFor just this single time;But Death had told her so the first,And she had hearkened him.
To wander now is my abode;To rest, — to rest would beA privilege of hurricaneTo memory and me.
I sing to use the waiting,My bonnet but to tie,And shut the door unto my house;No more to do have I,
Till, his best step approaching,We journey to the day,And tell each other how we sangTo keep the dark away.
A sickness of this world it most occasionsWhen best men die;A wishfulness their far conditionTo occupy.
A chief indifference, as foreignA world must beThemselves forsake contented,For Deity.
Superfluous were the sunWhen excellence is dead;He were superfluous every day,For every day is said
That syllable whose faithJust saves it from despair,And whose 'I'll meet you' hesitatesIf love inquire, 'Where?'
Upon his dateless fameOur periods may lie,As stars that drop anonymousFrom an abundant sky.
So proud she was to dieIt made us all ashamedThat what we cherished, so unknownTo her desire seemed.
So satisfied to goWhere none of us should be,Immediately, that anguish stoopedAlmost to jealousy.
Tie the strings to my life, my Lord,Then I am ready to go!Just a look at the horses —Rapid! That will do!
Put me in on the firmest side,So I shall never fall;For we must ride to the Judgment,And it's partly down hill.
But never I mind the bridges,And never I mind the sea;Held fast in everlasting raceBy my own choice and thee.
Good-by to the life I used to live,And the world I used to know;And kiss the hills for me, just once;Now I am ready to go!
The dying need but little, dear, —A glass of water's all,A flower's unobtrusive faceTo punctuate the wall,
A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret,And certainly that oneNo color in the rainbowPerceives when you are gone.
There's something quieter than sleepWithin this inner room!It wears a sprig upon its breast,And will not tell its name.
Some touch it and some kiss it,Some chafe its idle hand;It has a simple gravityI do not understand!
While simple-hearted neighborsChat of the 'early dead,'We, prone to periphrasis,Remark that birds have fled!
The soul should always stand ajar,That if the heaven inquire,He will not be obliged to wait,Or shy of troubling her.
Depart, before the host has slidThe bolt upon the door,To seek for the accomplished guest, —Her visitor no more.
Three weeks passed since I had seen her, —Some disease had vexed;'T was with text and village singingI beheld her next,
And a company — our pleasureTo discourse alone;Gracious now to me as any,Gracious unto none.
Borne, without dissent of either,To the parish night;Of the separated peopleWhich are out of sight?
I breathed enough to learn the trick,And now, removed from air,I simulate the breath so well,That one, to be quite sure
The lungs are stirless, must descendAmong the cunning cells,And touch the pantomime himself.How cool the bellows feels!
I wonder if the sepulchreIs not a lonesome way,When men and boys, and larks and JuneGo down the fields to hay!
If tolling bell I ask the cause.'A soul has gone to God,'I'm answered in a lonesome tone;Is heaven then so sad?
That bells should joyful ring to tellA soul had gone to heaven,Would seem to me the proper wayA good news should be given.
If I may have it when it's deadI will contented be;If just as soon as breath is outIt shall belong to me,
Until they lock it in the grave,'T is bliss I cannot weigh,For though they lock thee in the grave,Myself can hold the key.
Think of it, lover! I and theePermitted face to face to be;After a life, a death we'll say, —For death was that, and this is thee.
Before the ice is in the pools,Before the skaters go,Or any cheek at nightfallIs tarnished by the snow,
Before the fields have finished,Before the Christmas tree,Wonder upon wonderWill arrive to me!
What we touch the hems ofOn a summer's day;What is only walkingJust a bridge away;
That which sings so, speaks so,When there's no one here, —Will the frock I wept inAnswer me to wear?
I heard a fly buzz when I died;The stillness round my formWas like the stillness in the airBetween the heaves of storm.
The eyes beside had wrung them dry,And breaths were gathering sureFor that last onset, when the kingBe witnessed in his power.
I willed my keepsakes, signed awayWhat portion of me ICould make assignable, — and thenThere interposed a fly,
With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,Between the light and me;And then the windows failed, and thenI could not see to see.
Adrift! A little boat adrift!And night is coming down!Will no one guide a little boatUnto the nearest town?
So sailors say, on yesterday,Just as the dusk was brown,One little boat gave up its strife,And gurgled down and down.
But angels say, on yesterday,Just as the dawn was red,One little boat o'erspent with galesRetrimmed its masts, redecked its sailsExultant, onward sped!
There's been a death in the opposite houseAs lately as to-day.I know it by the numb lookSuch houses have alway.
The neighbors rustle in and out,The doctor drives away.A window opens like a pod,Abrupt, mechanically;
Somebody flings a mattress out, —The children hurry by;They wonder if It died on that, —I used to when a boy.
The minister goes stiffly inAs if the house were his,And he owned all the mourners now,And little boys besides;
And then the milliner, and the manOf the appalling trade,To take the measure of the house.There'll be that dark parade
Of tassels and of coaches soon;It's easy as a sign, —The intuition of the newsIn just a country town.
We never know we go, — when we are goingWe jest and shut the door;Fate following behind us bolts it,And we accost no more.
It struck me every dayThe lightning was as newAs if the cloud that instant slitAnd let the fire through.
It burned me in the night,It blistered in my dream;It sickened fresh upon my sightWith every morning's beam.
I thought that storm was brief, —The maddest, quickest by;But Nature lost the date of this,And left it in the sky.