I.Light, warmth, and sprouting greenness, and o'er allBlue, stainless, steel-bright ether, raining downTranquillity upon the deep-hushed town,The freshening meadows, and the hillsides brown;Voice of the west-wind from the hills of pine,And the brimmed river from its distant fall,Low hum of bees, and joyous interludeOf bird-songs in the streamlet-skirting wood,—Heralds and prophecies of sound and sight,Blessed forerunners of the warmth and light,Attendant angels to the house of prayer,With reverent footsteps keeping pace with mine,—Once more, through God's great love, with you I shareA morn of resurrection sweet and fairAs that which saw, of old, in Palestine,Immortal Love uprising in fresh bloomFrom the dark night and winter of the tomb!2d, 5th mo., 1852.
II.White with its sun-bleached dust, the pathway windsBefore me; dust is on the shrunken grass,And on the trees beneath whose boughs I pass;Frail screen against the Hunter of the sky,Who, glaring on me with his lidless eye,While mounting with his dog-star high and higherAmbushed in light intolerable, unbindsThe burnished quiver of his shafts of fire.Between me and the hot fields of his SouthA tremulous glow, as from a furnace-mouth,Glimmers and swims before my dazzled sight,As if the burning arrows of his ireBroke as they fell, and shattered into light;Yet on my cheek I feel the western wind,And hear it telling to the orchard trees,And to the faint and flower-forsaken bees,Tales of fair meadows, green with constant streams,And mountains rising blue and cool behind,Where in moist dells the purple orchis gleams,And starred with white the virgin's bower is twined.So the o'erwearied pilgrim, as he faresAlong life's summer waste, at times is fanned,Even at noontide, by the cool, sweet airsOf a serener and a holier land,Fresh as the morn, and as the dewfall bland.Breath of the blessed Heaven for which we pray,Blow from the eternal hills! make glad our earthly way!8th mo., 1852.
I. NOON.White clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep,Light mists, whose soft embraces keepThe sunshine on the hills asleep!O isles of calm! O dark, still wood!And stiller skies that overbroodYour rest with deeper quietude!O shapes and hues, dim beckoning, throughYon mountain gaps, my longing viewBeyond the purple and the blue,To stiller sea and greener land,And softer lights and airs more bland,And skies,—the hollow of God's hand!Transfused through you, O mountain friends!With mine your solemn spirit blends,And life no more hath separate ends.I read each misty mountain sign,I know the voice of wave and pine,And I am yours, and ye are mine.Life's burdens fall, its discords cease,I lapse into the glad releaseOf Nature's own exceeding peace.O welcome calm of heart and mind!As falls yon fir-tree's loosened rindTo leave a tenderer growth behind,So fall the weary years away;A child again, my head I layUpon the lap of this sweet day.This western wind hath Lethean powers,Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers,The lake is white with lotus-flowers!Even Duty's voice is faint and low,And slumberous Conscience, waking slow,Forgets her blotted scroll to show.The Shadow which pursues us all,Whose ever-nearing steps appall,Whose voice we hear behind us call,—That Shadow blends with mountain gray,It speaks but what the light waves say,—Death walks apart from Fear to-day!Rocked on her breast, these pines and IAlike on Nature's love rely;And equal seems to live or die.Assured that He whose presence fillsWith light the spaces of these hillsNo evil to His creatures wills,The simple faith remains, that HeWill do, whatever that may be,The best alike for man and tree.What mosses over one shall grow,What light and life the other know,Unanxious, leaving Him to show.
II. EVENING.Yon mountain's side is black with night,While, broad-orbed, o'er its gleaming crownThe moon, slow-rounding into sight,On the hushed inland sea looks down.How start to light the clustering isles,Each silver-hemmed! How sharply showThe shadows of their rocky piles,And tree-tops in the wave below!How far and strange the mountains seem,Dim-looming through the pale, still lightThe vague, vast grouping of a dream,They stretch into the solemn night.Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale,Hushed by that presence grand and grave,Are silent, save the cricket's wail,And low response of leaf and wave.Fair scenes! whereto the Day and NightMake rival love, I leave ye soon,What time before the eastern lightThe pale ghost of the setting moonShall hide behind yon rocky spines,And the young archer, Morn, shall breakHis arrows on the mountain pines,And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake!Farewell! around this smiling bayGay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom,With lighter steps than mine, may strayIn radiant summers yet to come.But none shall more regretful leaveThese waters and these hills than IOr, distant, fonder dream how eveOr dawn is painting wave and sky;How rising moons shine sad and mildOn wooded isle and silvering bay;Or setting suns beyond the piledAnd purple mountains lead the day;Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy,Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here,Shall add, to life's abounding joy,The charmed repose to suffering dear.Still waits kind Nature to impartHer choicest gifts to such as gainAn entrance to her loving heartThrough the sharp discipline of pain.Forever from the Hand that takesOne blessing from us others fall;And, soon or late, our Father makesHis perfect recompense to all!Oh, watched by Silence and the Night,And folded in the strong embraceOf the great mountains, with the lightOf the sweet heavens upon thy face,Lake of the Northland! keep thy dowerOf beauty still, and while aboveThy solemn mountains speak of power,Be thou the mirror of God's love.1853.
Last night, just as the tints of autumn's skyOf sunset faded from our hills and streams,I sat, vague listening, lapped in twilight dreams,To the leaf's rustle, and the cricket's cry.Then, like that basket, flush with summer fruit,Dropped by the angels at the Prophet's foot,Came, unannounced, a gift of clustered sweetness,Full-orbed, and glowing with the prisoned beamsOf summery suns, and rounded to completenessBy kisses of the south-wind and the dew.Thrilled with a glad surprise, methought I knewThe pleasure of the homeward-turning Jew,When Eshcol's clusters on his shoulders lay,Dropping their sweetness on his desert way.I said, "This fruit beseems no world of sin.Its parent vine, rooted in Paradise,O'ercrept the wall, and never paid the priceOf the great mischief,—an ambrosial tree,Eden's exotic, somehow smuggled in,To keep the thorns and thistles company."Perchance our frail, sad mother plucked in hasteA single vine-slip as she passed the gate,Where the dread sword alternate paled and burned,And the stern angel, pitying her fate,Forgave the lovely trespasser, and turnedAside his face of fire; and thus the wasteAnd fallen world hath yet its annual tasteOf primal good, to prove of sin the cost,And show by one gleaned ear the mighty harvest lost.1854.
How strange to greet, this frosty morn,In graceful counterfeit of flowers,These children of the meadows, bornOf sunshine and of showers!How well the conscious wood retainsThe pictures of its flower-sown home,The lights and shades, the purple stains,And golden hues of bloom!It was a happy thought to bringTo the dark season's frost and rimeThis painted memory of spring,This dream of summer-time.Our hearts are lighter for its sake,Our fancy's age renews its youth,And dim-remembered fictions takeThe guise of—present truth.A wizard of the Merrimac,—So old ancestral legends say,Could call green leaf and blossom backTo frosted stem and spray.The dry logs of the cottage wall,Beneath his touch, put out their leavesThe clay-bound swallow, at his call,Played round the icy eaves.The settler saw his oaken flailTake bud, and bloom before his eyes;From frozen pools he saw the pale,Sweet summer lilies rise.To their old homes, by man profaned,Came the sad dryads, exiled long,And through their leafy tongues complainedOf household use and wrong.The beechen platter sprouted wild,The pipkin wore its old-time greenThe cradle o'er the sleeping childBecame a leafy screen.Haply our gentle friend hath met,While wandering in her sylvan quest,Haunting his native woodlands yet,That Druid of the West;And, while the dew on leaf and flowerGlistened in moonlight clear and still,Learned the dusk wizard's spell of power,And caught his trick of skill.But welcome, be it new or old,The gift which makes the day more bright,And paints, upon the ground of coldAnd darkness, warmth and light.Without is neither gold nor green;Within, for birds, the birch-logs sing;Yet, summer-like, we sit betweenThe autumn and the spring.The one, with bridal blush of rose,And sweetest breath of woodland balm,And one whose matron lips uncloseIn smiles of saintly calm.Fill soft and deep, O winter snow!The sweet azalea's oaken dells,And hide the bank where roses blow,And swing the azure bells!O'erlay the amber violet's leaves,The purple aster's brookside home,Guard all the flowers her pencil givesA life beyond their bloom.And she, when spring comes round again,By greening slope and singing floodShall wander, seeking, not in vain,Her darlings of the wood.1855.
The trailing arbutus, or mayflower, grows abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims after their fearful winter. The name mayflower was familiar in England, as the application of it to the historic vessel shows, but it was applied by the English, and still is, to the hawthorn. Its use in New England in connection withEpigma repensdates from a very early day, some claiming that the first Pilgrims so used it, in affectionate memory of the vessel and its English flower association.
Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars,And nursed by winter gales,With petals of the sleeted spars,And leaves of frozen sails!What had she in those dreary hours,Within her ice-rimmed bay,In common with the wild-wood flowers,The first sweet smiles of May?Yet, "God be praised!" the Pilgrim said,Who saw the blossoms peerAbove the brown leaves, dry and dead,"Behold our Mayflower here!""God wills it: here our rest shall be,Our years of wandering o'er;For us the Mayflower of the seaShall spread her sails no more."O sacred flowers of faith and hope,As sweetly now as thenYe bloom on many a birchen slope,In many a pine-dark glen.Behind the sea-wall's rugged length,Unchanged, your leaves unfold,Like love behind the manly strengthOf the brave hearts of old.So live the fathers in their sons,Their sturdy faith be ours,And ours the love that overrunsIts rocky strength with flowers!The Pilgrim's wild and wintry dayIts shadow round us draws;The Mayflower of his stormy bay,Our Freedom's struggling cause.But warmer suns erelong shall bringTo life the frozen sod;And through dead leaves of hope shall springAfresh the flowers of God!1856.
I.O'er the bare woods, whose outstretched handsPlead with the leaden heavens in vain,I see, beyond the valley lands,The sea's long level dim with rain.Around me all things, stark and dumb,Seem praying for the snows to come,And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone,With winter's sunset lights and dazzling morn atone.II.Along the river's summer walk,The withered tufts of asters nod;And trembles on its arid stalkThe boar plume of the golden-rod.And on a ground of sombre fir,And azure-studded juniper,The silver birch its buds of purple shows,And scarlet berries tell where bloomed the sweet wild-rose!III.With mingled sound of horns and bells,A far-heard clang, the wild geese fly,Storm-sent, from Arctic moors and fells,Like a great arrow through the sky,Two dusky lines converged in one,Chasing the southward-flying sun;While the brave snow-bird and the hardy jayCall to them from the pines, as if to bid them stay.IV.I passed this way a year agoThe wind blew south; the noon of dayWas warm as June's; and save that snowFlecked the low mountains far away,And that the vernal-seeming breezeMocked faded grass and leafless trees,I might have dreamed of summer as I lay,Watching the fallen leaves with the soft wind at play.V.Since then, the winter blasts have piledThe white pagodas of the snowOn these rough slopes, and, strong and wild,Yon river, in its overflowOf spring-time rain and sun, set free,Crashed with its ices to the sea;And over these gray fields, then green and gold,The summer corn has waved, the thunder's organ rolled.VI.Rich gift of God! A year of timeWhat pomp of rise and shut of day,What hues wherewith our Northern climeMakes autumn's dropping woodlands gay,What airs outblown from ferny dells,And clover-bloom and sweetbrier smells,What songs of brooks and birds, what fruits and flowers,Green woods and moonlit snows, have in its round been ours!VII.I know not how, in other lands,The changing seasons come and go;What splendors fall on Syrian sands,What purple lights on Alpine snow!Nor how the pomp of sunrise waitsOn Venice at her watery gates;A dream alone to me is Arno's vale,And the Alhambra's halls are but a traveller's tale.VIII.Yet, on life's current, he who driftsIs one with him who rows or sailsAnd he who wanders widest liftsNo more of beauty's jealous veilsThan he who from his doorway seesThe miracle of flowers and trees,Feels the warm Orient in the noonday air,And from cloud minarets hears the sunset call to prayer!IX.The eye may well be glad that looksWhere Pharpar's fountains rise and fall;But he who sees his native brooksLaugh in the sun, has seen them all.The marble palaces of IndRise round him in the snow and wind;From his lone sweetbrier Persian Hafiz smiles,And Rome's cathedral awe is in his woodland aisles.X.And thus it is my fancy blendsThe near at hand and far and rare;And while the same horizon bendsAbove the silver-sprinkled hairWhich flashed the light of morning skiesOn childhood's wonder-lifted eyes,Within its round of sea and sky and field,Earth wheels with all her zones, the Kosmos stands revealed.XI.And thus the sick man on his bed,The toiler to his task-work bound,Behold their prison-walls outspread,Their clipped horizon widen round!While freedom-giving fancy waits,Like Peter's angel at the gates,The power is theirs to baffle care and pain,To bring the lost world back, and make it theirs again!XII.What lack of goodly company,When masters of the ancient lyreObey my call, and trace for meTheir words of mingled tears and fire!I talk with Bacon, grave and wise,I read the world with Pascal's eyes;And priest and sage, with solemn brows austere,And poets, garland-bound, the Lords of Thought, draw near.XIII.Methinks, O friend, I hear thee say,"In vain the human heart we mock;Bring living guests who love the day,Not ghosts who fly at crow of cock!The herbs we share with flesh and bloodAre better than ambrosial foodWith laurelled shades." I grant it, nothing loath,But doubly blest is he who can partake of both.XIV.He who might Plato's banquet grace,Have I not seen before me sit,And watched his puritanic face,With more than Eastern wisdom lit?Shrewd mystic! who, upon the backOf his Poor Richard's Almanac,Writing the Sufi's song, the Gentoo's dream,Links Manu's age of thought to Fulton's age of steam!XV.Here too, of answering love secure,Have I not welcomed to my hearthThe gentle pilgrim troubadour,Whose songs have girdled half the earth;Whose pages, like the magic matWhereon the Eastern lover sat,Have borne me over Rhine-land's purple vines,And Nubia's tawny sands, and Phrygia's mountain pines!XVI.And he, who to the lettered wealthOf ages adds the lore unpriced,The wisdom and the moral health,The ethics of the school of Christ;The statesman to his holy trust,As the Athenian archon, just,Struck down, exiled like him for truth alone,Has he not graced my home with beauty all his own?XVII.What greetings smile, what farewells wave,What loved ones enter and depart!The good, the beautiful, the brave,The Heaven-lent treasures of the heart!How conscious seems the frozen sodAnd beechen slope whereon they trodThe oak-leaves rustle, and the dry grass bendsBeneath the shadowy feet of lost or absent friends.XVIII.Then ask not why to these bleak hillsI cling, as clings the tufted moss,To bear the winter's lingering chills,The mocking spring's perpetual loss.I dream of lands where summer smiles,And soft winds blow from spicy isles,But scarce would Ceylon's breath of flowers be sweet,Could I not feel thy soil, New England, at my feet!XIX.At times I long for gentler skies,And bathe in dreams of softer air,But homesick tears would fill the eyesThat saw the Cross without the Bear.The pine must whisper to the palm,The north-wind break the tropic calm;And with the dreamy languor of the Line,The North's keen virtue blend, and strength to beauty join.XX.Better to stem with heart and handThe roaring tide of life, than lie,Unmindful, on its flowery strand,Of God's occasions drifting byBetter with naked nerve to bearThe needles of this goading air,Than, in the lap of sensual ease, foregoThe godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know.XXI.Home of my heart! to me more fairThan gay Versailles or Windsor's halls,The painted, shingly town-house whereThe freeman's vote for Freedom falls!The simple roof where prayer is made,Than Gothic groin and colonnade;The living temple of the heart of man,Than Rome's sky-mocking vault, or many-spired Milan!XXII.More dear thy equal village schools,Where rich and poor the Bible read,Than classic halls where Priestcraft rules,And Learning wears the chains of Creed;Thy glad Thanksgiving, gathering inThe scattered sheaves of home and kin,Than the mad license ushering Lenten pains,Or holidays of slaves who laugh and dance in chains.XXIII.And sweet homes nestle in these dales,And perch along these wooded swells;And, blest beyond Arcadian vales,They hear the sound of Sabbath bells!Here dwells no perfect man sublime,Nor woman winged before her time,But with the faults and follies of the race,Old home-bred virtues hold their not unhonored place.XXIV.Here manhood struggles for the sakeOf mother, sister, daughter, wife,The graces and the loves which makeThe music of the march of life;And woman, in her daily roundOf duty, walks on holy ground.No unpaid menial tills the soil, nor hereIs the bad lesson learned at human rights to sneer.XXV.Then let the icy north-wind blowThe trumpets of the coming storm,To arrowy sleet and blinding snowYon slanting lines of rain transform.Young hearts shall hail the drifted cold,As gayly as I did of old;And I, who watch them through the frosty pane,Unenvious, live in them my boyhood o'er again.XXVI.And I will trust that He who heedsThe life that hides in mead and wold,Who hangs yon alder's crimson beads,And stains these mosses green and gold,Will still, as He hath done, inclineHis gracious care to me and mine;Grant what we ask aright, from wrong debar,And, as the earth grows dark, make brighter every star!XXVII.I have not seen, I may not see,My hopes for man take form in fact,But God will give the victoryIn due time; in that faith I act.And lie who sees the future sure,The baffling present may endure,And bless, meanwhile, the unseen Hand that leadsThe heart's desires beyond the halting step of deeds.XXVIII.And thou, my song, I send thee forth,Where harsher songs of mine have flown;Go, find a place at home and hearthWhere'er thy singer's name is known;Revive for him the kindly thoughtOf friends; and they who love him not,Touched by some strain of thine, perchance may takeThe hand he proffers all, and thank him for thy sake.1857.
For ages on our river borders,These tassels in their tawny bloom,And willowy studs of downy silver,Have prophesied of Spring to come.For ages have the unbound watersSmiled on them from their pebbly hem,And the clear carol of the robinAnd song of bluebird welcomed them.But never yet from smiling river,Or song of early bird, have theyBeen greeted with a gladder welcomeThan whispers from my heart to-day.They break the spell of cold and darkness,The weary watch of sleepless pain;And from my heart, as from the river,The ice of winter melts again.Thanks, Mary! for this wild-wood tokenOf Freya's footsteps drawing near;Almost, as in the rune of Asgard,The growing of the grass I hear.It is as if the pine-trees called meFrom ceiled room and silent books,To see the dance of woodland shadows,And hear the song of April brooks!As in the old Teutonic balladOf Odenwald live bird and tree,Together live in bloom and music,I blend in song thy flowers and thee.Earth's rocky tablets bear foreverThe dint of rain and small bird's trackWho knows but that my idle versesMay leave some trace by Merrimac!The bird that trod the mellow layersOf the young earth is sought in vain;The cloud is gone that wove the sandstone,From God's design, with threads of rain!So, when this fluid age we live inShall stiffen round my careless rhyme,Who made the vagrant tracks may puzzleThe savants of the coming time;And, following out their dim suggestions,Some idly-curious hand may drawMy doubtful portraiture, as CuvierDrew fish and bird from fin and claw.And maidens in the far-off twilights,Singing my words to breeze and stream,Shall wonder if the old-time MaryWere real, or the rhymer's dream!1st 3d mo., 1857.
Our vales are sweet with fern and rose,Our hills are maple-crowned;But not from them our fathers choseThe village burying-ground.The dreariest spot in all the landTo Death they set apart;With scanty grace from Nature's hand,And none from that of Art.A winding wall of mossy stone,Frost-flung and broken, linesA lonesome acre thinly grownWith grass and wandering vines.Without the wall a birch-tree showsIts drooped and tasselled head;Within, a stag-horned sumach grows,Fern-leafed, with spikes of red.There, sheep that graze the neighboring plainLike white ghosts come and go,The farm-horse drags his fetlock chain,The cow-bell tinkles slow.Low moans the river from its bed,The distant pines reply;Like mourners shrinking from the dead,They stand apart and sigh.Unshaded smites the summer sun,Unchecked the winter blast;The school-girl learns the place to shun,With glances backward cast.For thus our fathers testified,That he might read who ran,The emptiness of human pride,The nothingness of man.They dared not plant the grave with flowers,Nor dress the funeral sod,Where, with a love as deep as ours,They left their dead with God.The hard and thorny path they keptFrom beauty turned aside;Nor missed they over those who sleptThe grace to life denied.Yet still the wilding flowers would blow,The golden leaves would fall,The seasons come, the seasons go,And God be good to all.Above the graves the' blackberry hungIn bloom and green its wreath,And harebells swung as if they rungThe chimes of peace beneath.The beauty Nature loves to share,The gifts she hath for all,The common light, the common air,O'ercrept the graveyard's wall.It knew the glow of eventide,The sunrise and the noon,And glorified and sanctifiedIt slept beneath the moon.With flowers or snow-flakes for its sod,Around the seasons ran,And evermore the love of GodRebuked the fear of man.We dwell with fears on either hand,Within a daily strife,And spectral problems waiting standBefore the gates of life.The doubts we vainly seek to solve,The truths we know, are one;The known and nameless stars revolveAround the Central Sun.And if we reap as we have sown,And take the dole we deal,The law of pain is love alone,The wounding is to heal.Unharmed from change to change we glide,We fall as in our dreams;The far-off terror at our sideA smiling angel seems.Secure on God's all-tender heartAlike rest great and small;Why fear to lose our little part,When He is pledged for all?O fearful heart and troubled brainTake hope and strength from this,—That Nature never hints in vain,Nor prophesies amiss.Her wild birds sing the same sweet stave,Her lights and airs are givenAlike to playground and the grave;And over both is Heaven.1858
Is it the palm, the cocoa-palm,On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm?Or is it a ship in the breezeless calm?A ship whose keel is of palm beneath,Whose ribs of palm have a palm-bark sheath,And a rudder of palm it steereth with.Branches of palm are its spars and rails,Fibres of palm are its woven sails,And the rope is of palm that idly trails!What does the good ship bear so well?The cocoa-nut with its stony shell,And the milky sap of its inner cell.What are its jars, so smooth and fine,But hollowed nuts, filled with oil and wine,And the cabbage that ripens under the Line?Who smokes his nargileh, cool and calm?The master, whose cunning and skill could charmCargo and ship from the bounteous palm.In the cabin he sits on a palm-mat soft,From a beaker of palm his drink is quaffed,And a palm-thatch shields from the sun aloft!His dress is woven of palmy strands,And he holds a palm-leaf scroll in his hands,Traced with the Prophet's wise commands!The turban folded about his headWas daintily wrought of the palm-leaf braid,And the fan that cools him of palm was made.Of threads of palm was the carpet spunWhereon he kneels when the day is done,And the foreheads of Islam are bowed as one!To him the palm is a gift divine,Wherein all uses of man combine,—House, and raiment, and food, and wine!And, in the hour of his great release,His need of the palm shall only ceaseWith the shroud wherein he lieth in peace."Allah il Allah!" he sings his psalm,On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm;"Thanks to Allah who gives the palm!"1858.
No bird-song floated down the hill,The tangled bank below was still;No rustle from the birchen stem,No ripple from the water's hem.The dusk of twilight round us grew,We felt the falling of the dew;For, from us, ere the day was done,The wooded hills shut out the sun.But on the river's farther sideWe saw the hill-tops glorified,—A tender glow, exceeding fair,A dream of day without its glare.With us the damp, the chill, the gloomWith them the sunset's rosy bloom;While dark, through willowy vistas seen,The river rolled in shade between.From out the darkness where we trod,We gazed upon those bills of God,Whose light seemed not of moon or sun.We spake not, but our thought was one.We paused, as if from that bright shoreBeckoned our dear ones gone before;And stilled our beating hearts to hearThe voices lost to mortal ear!Sudden our pathway turned from night;The hills swung open to the light;Through their green gates the sunshine showed,A long, slant splendor downward flowed.Down glade and glen and bank it rolled;It bridged the shaded stream with gold;And, borne on piers of mist, alliedThe shadowy with the sunlit side!"So," prayed we, "when our feet draw nearThe river dark, with mortal fear,"And the night cometh chill with dew,O Father! let Thy light break through!"So let the hills of doubt divide,So bridge with faith the sunless tide!"So let the eyes that fail on earthOn Thy eternal hills look forth;"And in Thy beckoning angels knowThe dear ones whom we loved below!"1880.
MOUNTAIN PICTURES.
I. FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSETOnce more, O Mountains of the North, unveilYour brows, and lay your cloudy mantles byAnd once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail,Uplift against the blue walls of the skyYour mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weaveIts golden net-work in your belting woods,Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,And on your kingly brows at morn and eveSet crowns of fire! So shall my soul receiveHaply the secret of your calm and strength,Your unforgotten beauty interfuseMy common life, your glorious shapes and huesAnd sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come,Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in billowy lengthFrom the sea-level of my lowland home!They rise before me! Last night's thunder-gustRoared not in vain: for where its lightnings thrustTheir tongues of fire, the great peaks seem so near,Burned clean of mist, so starkly bold and clear,I almost pause the wind in the pines to hear,The loose rock's fall, the steps of browsing deer.The clouds that shattered on yon slide-worn wallsAnd splintered on the rocks their spears of rainHave set in play a thousand waterfalls,Making the dusk and silence of the woodsGlad with the laughter of the chasing floods,And luminous with blown spray and silver gleams,While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streamsSing to the freshened meadow-lands again.So, let me hope, the battle-storm that beatsThe land with hail and fire may pass awayWith its spent thunders at the break of day,Like last night's clouds, and leave, as it retreats,A greener earth and fairer sky behind,Blown crystal-clear by Freedom's Northern wind!II. MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSET.I would I were a painter, for the sakeOf a sweet picture, and of her who led,A fitting guide, with reverential tread,Into that mountain mystery. First a lakeTinted with sunset; next the wavy linesOf far receding hills; and yet more far,Monadnock lifting from his night of pinesHis rosy forehead to the evening star.Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachuset laidHis head against the West, whose warm light madeHis aureole; and o'er him, sharp and clear,Like a shaft of lightning in mid-launching stayed,A single level cloud-line, shone uponBy the fierce glances of the sunken sun,Menaced the darkness with its golden spear!So twilight deepened round us. Still and blackThe great woods climbed the mountain at our back;And on their skirts, where yet the lingering dayOn the shorn greenness of the clearing lay,The brown old farm-house like a bird's-nest hung.With home-life sounds the desert air was stirredThe bleat of sheep along the hill we heard,The bucket plashing in the cool, sweet well,The pasture-bars that clattered as they fell;Dogs barked, fowls fluttered, cattle lowed; the gateOf the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry weightOf sun-brown children, listening, while they swung,The welcome sound of supper-call to hear;And down the shadowy lane, in tinklings clear,The pastoral curfew of the cow-bell rung.Thus soothed and pleased, our backward path we took,Praising the farmer's home. He only spake,Looking into the sunset o'er the lake,Like one to whom the far-off is most near:"Yes, most folks think it has a pleasant look;I love it for my good old mother's sake,Who lived and died here in the peace of God!"The lesson of his words we pondered o'er,As silently we turned the eastern flankOf the mountain, where its shadow deepest sank,Doubling the night along our rugged road:We felt that man was more than his abode,—The inward life than Nature's raiment more;And the warm sky, the sundown-tinted hill,The forest and the lake, seemed dwarfed and dimBefore the saintly soul, whose human willMeekly in the Eternal footsteps trod,Making her homely toil and household waysAn earthly echo of the song of praiseSwelling from angel lips and harps of seraphim.1862.
Sweetest of all childlike dreamsIn the simple Indian loreStill to me the legend seemsOf the shapes who flit before.Flitting, passing, seen and gone,Never reached nor found at rest,Baffling search, but beckoning onTo the Sunset of the Blest.From the clefts of mountain rocks,Through the dark of lowland firs,Flash the eyes and flow the locksOf the mystic Vanishers!And the fisher in his skiff,And the hunter on the moss,Hear their call from cape and cliff,See their hands the birch-leaves toss.Wistful, longing, through the greenTwilight of the clustered pines,In their faces rarely seenBeauty more than mortal shines.Fringed with gold their mantles flowOn the slopes of westering knolls;In the wind they whisper lowOf the Sunset Land of Souls.Doubt who may, O friend of mine!Thou and I have seen them too;On before with beck and signStill they glide, and we pursue.More than clouds of purple trailIn the gold of setting day;More than gleams of wing or sailBeckon from the sea-mist gray.Glimpses of immortal youth,Gleams and glories seen and flown,Far-heard voices sweet with truth,Airs from viewless Eden blown;Beauty that eludes our grasp,Sweetness that transcends our taste,Loving hands we may not clasp,Shining feet that mock our haste;Gentle eyes we closed below,Tender voices heard once more,Smile and call us, as they goOn and onward, still before.Guided thus, O friend of mineLet us walk our little way,Knowing by each beckoning signThat we are not quite astray.Chase we still, with baffled feet,Smiling eye and waving hand,Sought and seeker soon shall meet,Lost and found, in Sunset Land.1864.