A sound as if from bells of silver,Or elfin cymbals smitten clear,Through the frost-pictured panes I hear.A brightness which outshines the morning,A splendor brooking no delay,Beckons and tempts my feet away.I leave the trodden village highwayFor virgin snow-paths glimmering throughA jewelled elm-tree avenue;Where, keen against the walls of sapphire,The gleaming tree-bolls, ice-embossed,Hold up their chandeliers of frost.I tread in Orient halls enchanted,I dream the Saga's dream of cavesGem-lit beneath the North Sea waves!I walk the land of Eldorado,I touch its mimic garden bowers,Its silver leaves and diamond flowers!The flora of the mystic mine-worldAround me lifts on crystal stemsThe petals of its clustered gems!What miracle of weird transformingIn this wild work of frost and light,This glimpse of glory infinite!This foregleam of the Holy CityLike that to him of Patmos given,The white bride coming down from heaven!How flash the ranked and mail-clad alders,Through what sharp-glancing spears of reedsThe brook its muffled water leads!Yon maple, like the bush of Horeb,Burns unconsumed: a white, cold fireRays out from every grassy spire.Each slender rush and spike of mullein,Low laurel shrub and drooping fern,Transfigured, blaze where'er I turn.How yonder Ethiopian hemlockCrowned with his glistening circlet stands!What jewels light his swarthy hands!Here, where the forest opens southward,Between its hospitable pines,As through a door, the warm sun shines.The jewels loosen on the branches,And lightly, as the soft winds blow,Fall, tinkling, on the ice below.And through the clashing of their cymbalsI hear the old familiar fallOf water down the rocky wall,Where, from its wintry prison breaking,In dark and silence hidden long,The brook repeats its summer song.One instant flashing in the sunshine,Keen as a sabre from its sheath,Then lost again the ice beneath.I hear the rabbit lightly leaping,The foolish screaming of the jay,The chopper's axe-stroke far away;The clamor of some neighboring barn-yard,The lazy cock's belated crow,Or cattle-tramp in crispy snow.And, as in some enchanted forestThe lost knight hears his comrades sing,And, near at hand, their bridles ring,—So welcome I these sounds and voices,These airs from far-off summer blown,This life that leaves me not alone.For the white glory overawes me;The crystal terror of the seerOf Chebar's vision blinds me here.Rebuke me not, O sapphire heaven!Thou stainless earth, lay not on me,Thy keen reproach of purity,If, in this August presence-chamber,I sigh for summer's leaf-green gloomAnd warm airs thick with odorous bloom!Let the strange frost-work sink and crumble,And let the loosened tree-boughs swing,Till all their bells of silver ring.Shine warmly down, thou sun of noontime,On this chill pageant, melt and moveThe winter's frozen heart with love.And, soft and low, thou wind south-blowing,Breathe through a veil of tenderest hazeThy prophecy of summer days.Come with thy green relief of promise,And to this dead, cold splendor bringThe living jewels of the spring!1869.
The time of gifts has come again,And, on my northern window-pane,Outlined against the day's brief light,A Christmas token hangs in sight.The wayside travellers, as they pass,Mark the gray disk of clouded glass;And the dull blankness seems, perchance,Folly to their wise ignorance.They cannot from their outlook seeThe perfect grace it hath for me;For there the flower, whose fringes throughThe frosty breath of autumn blew,Turns from without its face of bloomTo the warm tropic of my room,As fair as when beside its brookThe hue of bending skies it took.So from the trodden ways of earth,Seem some sweet souls who veil their worth,And offer to the careless glanceThe clouding gray of circumstance.They blossom best where hearth-fires burn,To loving eyes alone they turnThe flowers of inward grace, that hideTheir beauty from the world outside.But deeper meanings come to me,My half-immortal flower, from thee!Man judges from a partial view,None ever yet his brother knew;The Eternal Eye that sees the wholeMay better read the darkened soul,And find, to outward sense denied,The flower upon its inmost side1872.
The river hemmed with leaning treesWound through its meadows green;A low, blue line of mountains showedThe open pines between.One sharp, tall peak above them allClear into sunlight sprangI saw the river of my dreams,The mountains that I sang!No clue of memory led me on,But well the ways I knew;A feeling of familiar thingsWith every footstep grew.Not otherwise above its cragCould lean the blasted pine;Not otherwise the maple holdAloft its red ensign.So up the long and shorn foot-hillsThe mountain road should creep;So, green and low, the meadow foldIts red-haired kine asleep.The river wound as it should wind;Their place the mountains took;The white torn fringes of their cloudsWore no unwonted look.Yet ne'er before that river's rimWas pressed by feet of mine,Never before mine eyes had crossedThat broken mountain line.A presence, strange at once and known,Walked with me as my guide;The skirts of some forgotten lifeTrailed noiseless at my side.Was it a dim-remembered dream?Or glimpse through aeons old?The secret which the mountains keptThe river never told.But from the vision ere it passedA tender hope I drew,And, pleasant as a dawn of spring,The thought within me grew,That love would temper every change,And soften all surprise,And, misty with the dreams of earth,The hills of Heaven arise.1873.
We saw the slow tides go and come,The curving surf-lines lightly drawn,The gray rocks touched with tender bloomBeneath the fresh-blown rose of dawn.We saw in richer sunsets lostThe sombre pomp of showery noons;And signalled spectral sails that crossedThe weird, low light of rising moons.On stormy eves from cliff and headWe saw the white spray tossed and spurned;While over all, in gold and red,Its face of fire the lighthouse turned.The rail-car brought its daily crowds,Half curious, half indifferent,Like passing sails or floating clouds,We saw them as they came and went.But, one calm morning, as we layAnd watched the mirage-lifted wallOf coast, across the dreamy bay,And heard afar the curlew call,And nearer voices, wild or tame,Of airy flock and childish throng,Up from the water's edge there cameFaint snatches of familiar song.Careless we heard the singer's choiceOf old and common airs; at lastThe tender pathos of his voiceIn one low chanson held us fast.A song that mingled joy and pain,And memories old and sadly sweet;While, timing to its minor strain,The waves in lapsing cadence beat.. . . . .The waves are glad in breeze and sun;The rocks are fringed with foam;I walk once more a haunted shore,A stranger, yet at home,A land of dreams I roam.Is this the wind, the soft sea windThat stirred thy locks of brown?Are these the rocks whose mosses knewThe trail of thy light gown,Where boy and girl sat down?I see the gray fort's broken wall,The boats that rock below;And, out at sea, the passing sailsWe saw so long agoRose-red in morning's glow.The freshness of the early timeOn every breeze is blown;As glad the sea, as blue the sky,—The change is ours alone;The saddest is my own.A stranger now, a world-worn man,Is he who bears my name;But thou, methinks, whose mortal lifeImmortal youth became,Art evermore the same.Thou art not here, thou art not there,Thy place I cannot see;I only know that where thou artThe blessed angels be,And heaven is glad for thee.Forgive me if the evil yearsHave left on me their sign;Wash out, O soul so beautiful,The many stains of mineIn tears of love divine!I could not look on thee and live,If thou wert by my side;The vision of a shining one,The white and heavenly bride,Is well to me denied.But turn to me thy dear girl-faceWithout the angel's crown,The wedded roses of thy lips,Thy loose hair rippling downIn waves of golden brown.Look forth once more through space and time,And let thy sweet shade fallIn tenderest grace of soul and formOn memory's frescoed wall,A shadow, and yet all!Draw near, more near, forever dear!Where'er I rest or roam,Or in the city's crowded streets,Or by the blown sea foam,The thought of thee is home!. . . . .At breakfast hour the singer readThe city news, with comment wise,Like one who felt the pulse of tradeBeneath his finger fall and rise.His look, his air, his curt speech, toldThe man of action, not of books,To whom the corners made in goldAnd stocks were more than seaside nooks.Of life beneath the life confessedHis song had hinted unawares;Of flowers in traffic's ledgers pressed,Of human hearts in bulls and bears.But eyes in vain were turned to watchThat face so hard and shrewd and strong;And ears in vain grew sharp to catchThe meaning of that morning song.In vain some sweet-voiced querist soughtTo sound him, leaving as she came;Her baited album only caughtA common, unromantic name.No word betrayed the mystery fine,That trembled on the singer's tongue;He came and went, and left no signBehind him save the song he sung.1874.
The summer warmth has left the sky,The summer songs have died away;And, withered, in the footpaths lieThe fallen leaves, but yesterdayWith ruby and with topaz gay.The grass is browning on the hills;No pale, belated flowers recallThe astral fringes of the rills,And drearily the dead vines fall,Frost-blackened, from the roadside wall.Yet through the gray and sombre wood,Against the dusk of fir and pine,Last of their floral sisterhood,The hazel's yellow blossoms shine,The tawny gold of Afric's mine!Small beauty hath my unsung flower,For spring to own or summer hail;But, in the season's saddest hour,To skies that weep and winds that wailIts glad surprisals never fail.O days grown cold! O life grown oldNo rose of June may bloom again;But, like the hazel's twisted gold,Through early frost and latter rainShall hints of summer-time remain.And as within the hazel's boughA gift of mystic virtue dwells,That points to golden ores below,And in dry desert places tellsWhere flow unseen the cool, sweet wells,So, in the wise Diviner's hand,Be mine the hazel's grateful partTo feel, beneath a thirsty land,The living waters thrill and start,The beating of the rivulet's heart!Sufficeth me the gift to lightWith latest bloom the dark, cold days;To call some hidden spring to sightThat, in these dry and dusty ways,Shall sing its pleasant song of praise.O Love! the hazel-wand may fail,But thou canst lend the surer spell,That, passing over Baca's vale,Repeats the old-time miracle,And makes the desert-land a well.1874.
A gold fringe on the purpling hemOf hills the river runs,As down its long, green valley fallsThe last of summer's suns.Along its tawny gravel-bedBroad-flowing, swift, and still,As if its meadow levels feltThe hurry of the hill,Noiseless between its banks of greenFrom curve to curve it slips;The drowsy maple-shadows restLike fingers on its lips.A waif from Carroll's wildest hills,Unstoried and unknown;The ursine legend of its nameProwls on its banks alone.Yet flowers as fair its slopes adornAs ever Yarrow knew,Or, under rainy Irish skies,By Spenser's Mulla grew;And through the gaps of leaning treesIts mountain cradle showsThe gold against the amethyst,The green against the rose.Touched by a light that hath no name,A glory never sung,Aloft on sky and mountain wallAre God's great pictures hung.How changed the summits vast and old!No longer granite-browed,They melt in rosy mist; the rockIs softer than the cloud;The valley holds its breath; no leafOf all its elms is twirledThe silence of eternitySeems falling on the world.The pause before the breaking sealsOf mystery is this;Yon miracle-play of night and dayMakes dumb its witnesses.What unseen altar crowns the hillsThat reach up stair on stair?What eyes look through, what white wings fanThese purple veils of air?What Presence from the heavenly heightsTo those of earth stoops down?Not vainly Hellas dreamed of godsOn Ida's snowy crown!Slow fades the vision of the sky,The golden water pales,And over all the valley-landA gray-winged vapor sails.I go the common way of all;The sunset fires will burn,The flowers will blow, the river flow,When I no more return.No whisper from the mountain pineNor lapsing stream shall tellThe stranger, treading where I tread,Of him who loved them well.But beauty seen is never lost,God's colors all are fast;The glory of this sunset heavenInto my soul has passed,A sense of gladness unconfinedTo mortal date or clime;As the soul liveth, it shall liveBeyond the years of time.Beside the mystic asphodelsShall bloom the home-born flowers,And new horizons flush and glowWith sunset hues of ours.Farewell! these smiling hills must wearToo soon their wintry frown,And snow-cold winds from off them shakeThe maple's red leaves down.But I shall see a summer sunStill setting broad and low;The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom,The golden water flow.A lover's claim is mine on allI see to have and hold,—The rose-light of perpetual hills,And sunsets never cold!1876
They left their home of summer easeBeneath the lowland's sheltering trees,To seek, by ways unknown to all,The promise of the waterfall.Some vague, faint rumor to the valeHad crept—perchance a hunter's tale—Of its wild mirth of waters lostOn the dark woods through which it tossed.Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhereWhirled in mad dance its misty hair;But who had raised its veil, or seenThe rainbow skirts of that Undine?They sought it where the mountain brookIts swift way to the valley took;Along the rugged slope they clomb,Their guide a thread of sound and foam.Height after height they slowly won;The fiery javelins of the sunSmote the bare ledge; the tangled shadeWith rock and vine their steps delayed.But, through leaf-openings, now and thenThey saw the cheerful homes of men,And the great mountains with their wallOf misty purple girdling all.The leaves through which the glad winds blewShared the wild dance the waters knew;And where the shadows deepest fellThe wood-thrush rang his silver bell.Fringing the stream, at every turnSwung low the waving fronds of fern;From stony cleft and mossy sodPale asters sprang, and golden-rod.And still the water sang the sweet,Glad song that stirred its gliding feet,And found in rock and root the keysOf its beguiling melodies.Beyond, above, its signals flewOf tossing foam the birch-trees through;Now seen, now lost, but baffling stillThe weary seekers' slackening will.Each called to each: "Lo here! Lo there!Its white scarf flutters in the air!"They climbed anew; the vision fled,To beckon higher overhead.So toiled they up the mountain-slopeWith faint and ever fainter hope;With faint and fainter voice the brookStill bade them listen, pause, and look.Meanwhile below the day was done;Above the tall peaks saw the sunSink, beam-shorn, to its misty setBehind the hills of violet."Here ends our quest!" the seekers cried,"The brook and rumor both have lied!The phantom of a waterfallHas led us at its beck and call."But one, with years grown wiser, said"So, always baffled, not misled,We follow where before us runsThe vision of the shining ones."Not where they seem their signals fly,Their voices while we listen die;We cannot keep, however fleet,The quick time of their winged feet."From youth to age unresting strayThese kindly mockers in our way;Yet lead they not, the baffling elves,To something better than themselves?"Here, though unreached the goal we sought,Its own reward our toil has brought:The winding water's sounding rush,The long note of the hermit thrush,"The turquoise lakes, the glimpse of pondAnd river track, and, vast, beyondBroad meadows belted round with pines,The grand uplift of mountain lines!"What matter though we seek with painThe garden of the gods in vain,If lured thereby we climb to greetSome wayside blossom Eden-sweet?"To seek is better than to gain,The fond hope dies as we attain;Life's fairest things are those which seem,The best is that of which we dream."Then let us trust our waterfallStill flashes down its rocky wall,With rainbow crescent curved acrossIts sunlit spray from moss to moss."And we, forgetful of our pain,In thought shall seek it oft again;Shall see this aster-blossomed sod,This sunshine of the golden-rod,"And haply gain, through parting boughs,Grand glimpses of great mountain browsCloud-turbaned, and the sharp steel sheenOf lakes deep set in valleys green."So failure wins; the consequenceOf loss becomes its recompense;And evermore the end shall tellThe unreached ideal guided well."Our sweet illusions only dieFulfilling love's sure prophecy;And every wish for better thingsAn undreamed beauty nearer brings."For fate is servitor of love;Desire and hope and longing proveThe secret of immortal youth,And Nature cheats us into truth."O kind allurers, wisely sent,Beguiling with benign intent,Still move us, through divine unrest,To seek the loveliest and the best!"Go with us when our souls go free,And, in the clear, white light to be,Add unto Heaven's beatitudeThe old delight of seeking good!"1878.
I wandered lonely where the pine-trees madeAgainst the bitter East their barricade,And, guided by its sweetPerfume, I found, within a narrow dell,The trailing spring flower tinted like a shellAmid dry leaves and mosses at my feet.From under dead boughs, for whose loss the pinesMoaned ceaseless overhead, the blossoming vinesLifted their glad surprise,While yet the bluebird smoothed in leafless treesHis feathers ruffled by the chill sea-breeze,And snow-drifts lingered under April skies.As, pausing, o'er the lonely flower I bent,I thought of lives thus lowly, clogged and pent,Which yet find room,Through care and cumber, coldness and decay,To lend a sweetness to the ungenial dayAnd make the sad earth happier for their bloom.1879.
This name in some parts of Europe is given to the season we call Indian Summer, in honor of the good St. Martin. The title of the poem was suggested by the fact that the day it refers to was the exact date of that set apart to the Saint, the 11th of November.
Though flowers have perished at the touchOf Frost, the early comer,I hail the season loved so much,The good St. Martin's summer.O gracious morn, with rose-red dawn,And thin moon curving o'er it!The old year's darling, latest born,More loved than all before it!How flamed the sunrise through the pines!How stretched the birchen shadows,Braiding in long, wind-wavered linesThe westward sloping meadows!The sweet day, opening as a flowerUnfolds its petals tender,Renews for us at noontide's hourThe summer's tempered splendor.The birds are hushed; alone the wind,That through the woodland searches,The red-oak's lingering leaves can find,And yellow plumes of larches.But still the balsam-breathing pineInvites no thought of sorrow,No hint of loss from air like wineThe earth's content can borrow.The summer and the winter hereMidway a truce are holding,A soft, consenting atmosphereTheir tents of peace enfolding.The silent woods, the lonely hills,Rise solemn in their gladness;The quiet that the valley fillsIs scarcely joy or sadness.How strange! The autumn yesterdayIn winter's grasp seemed dying;On whirling winds from skies of grayThe early snow was flying.And now, while over Nature's moodThere steals a soft relenting,I will not mar the present good,Forecasting or lamenting.My autumn time and Nature's holdA dreamy tryst together,And, both grown old, about us foldThe golden-tissued weather.I lean my heart against the dayTo feel its bland caressing;I will not let it pass awayBefore it leaves its blessing.God's angels come not as of oldThe Syrian shepherds knew them;In reddening dawns, in sunset gold,And warm noon lights I view them.Nor need there is, in times like thisWhen heaven to earth draws nearer,Of wing or song as witnessesTo make their presence clearer.O stream of life, whose swifter flowIs of the end forewarning,Methinks thy sundown afterglowSeems less of night than morning!Old cares grow light; aside I layThe doubts and fears that troubled;The quiet of the happy dayWithin my soul is doubled.That clouds must veil this fair sunshineNot less a joy I find it;Nor less yon warm horizon lineThat winter lurks behind it.The mystery of the untried daysI close my eyes from reading;His will be done whose darkest waysTo light and life are leading!Less drear the winter night shall be,If memory cheer and heartenIts heavy hours with thoughts of thee,Sweet summer of St. Martin!1880.
A cloud, like that the old-time Hebrew sawOn Carmel prophesying rain, beganTo lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan,Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a flawOf chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beatDown the long valley's murmuring pines, and wokeThe noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and brokeIts smooth steel mirror at the mountains' feet.Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined darkness sweptOver the rough pine-bearded Asquam range;A wraith of tempest, wonderful and strange,From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped.One moment, as if challenging the storm,Chocorua's tall, defiant sentinelLooked from his watch-tower; then the shadow fell,And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form.And over all the still unhidden sun,Weaving its light through slant-blown veils of rain,Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles on pain;And, when the tumult and the strife were done,With one foot on the lake and one on land,Framing within his crescent's tinted streakA far-off picture of the Melvin peak,Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned.1882.
To kneel before some saintly shrine,To breathe the health of airs divine,Or bathe where sacred rivers flow,The cowled and turbaned pilgrims go.I too, a palmer, take, as theyWith staff and scallop-shell, my wayTo feel, from burdening cares and ills,The strong uplifting of the hills.The years are many since, at first,For dreamed-of wonders all athirst,I saw on Winnipesaukee fallThe shadow of the mountain wall.Ah! where are they who sailed with meThe beautiful island-studded sea?And am I he whose keen surpriseFlashed out from such unclouded eyes?Still, when the sun of summer burns,My longing for the hills returns;And northward, leaving at my backThe warm vale of the Merrimac,I go to meet the winds of morn,Blown down the hill-gaps, mountain-born,Breathe scent of pines, and satisfyThe hunger of a lowland eye.Again I see the day declineAlong a ridged horizon line;Touching the hill-tops, as a nunHer beaded rosary, sinks the sun.One lake lies golden, which shall soonBe silver in the rising moon;And one, the crimson of the skiesAnd mountain purple multiplies.With the untroubled quiet blendsThe distance-softened voice of friends;The girl's light laugh no discord bringsTo the low song the pine-tree sings;And, not unwelcome, comes the hailOf boyhood from his nearing sail.The human presence breaks no spell,And sunset still is miracle!Calm as the hour, methinks I feelA sense of worship o'er me steal;Not that of satyr-charming Pan,No cult of Nature shaming man,Not Beauty's self, but that which livesAnd shines through all the veils it weaves,—Soul of the mountain, lake, and wood,Their witness to the Eternal Good!And if, by fond illusion, hereThe earth to heaven seems drawing near,And yon outlying range invitesTo other and serener heights,Scarce hid behind its topmost swell,The shining Mounts DelectableA dream may hint of truth no lessThan the sharp light of wakefulness.As through her vale of incense smoke.Of old the spell-rapt priestess spoke,More than her heathen oracle,May not this trance of sunset tellThat Nature's forms of lovelinessTheir heavenly archetypes confess,Fashioned like Israel's ark aloneFrom patterns in the Mount made known?A holier beauty overbroodsThese fair and faint similitudes;Yet not unblest is he who seesShadows of God's realities,And knows beyond this masqueradeOf shape and color, light and shade,And dawn and set, and wax and wane,Eternal verities remain.O gems of sapphire, granite set!O hills that charmed horizons fretI know how fair your morns can break,In rosy light on isle and lake;How over wooded slopes can runThe noonday play of cloud and sun,And evening droop her oriflammeOf gold and red in still Asquam.The summer moons may round again,And careless feet these hills profane;These sunsets waste on vacant eyesThe lavish splendor of the skies;Fashion and folly, misplaced here,Sigh for their natural atmosphere,And travelled pride the outlook scornOf lesser heights than Matterhorn.But let me dream that hill and skyOf unseen beauty prophesy;And in these tinted lakes beholdThe trailing of the raiment foldOf that which, still eluding gaze,Allures to upward-tending ways,Whose footprints make, wherever found,Our common earth a holy ground.1883.
The subtle power in perfume foundNor priest nor sibyl vainly learned;On Grecian shrine or Aztec moundNo censer idly burned.That power the old-time worships knew,The Corybantes' frenzied dance,The Pythian priestess swooning throughThe wonderland of trance.And Nature holds, in wood and field,Her thousand sunlit censers still;To spells of flower and shrub we yieldAgainst or with our will.I climbed a hill path strange and newWith slow feet, pausing at each turn;A sudden waft of west wind blewThe breath of the sweet fern.That fragrance from my vision sweptThe alien landscape; in its stead,Up fairer hills of youth I stepped,As light of heart as tread.I saw my boyhood's lakelet shineOnce more through rifts of woodland shade;I knew my river's winding lineBy morning mist betrayed.With me June's freshness, lapsing brook,Murmurs of leaf and bee, the callOf birds, and one in voice and lookIn keeping with them all.A fern beside the way we wentShe plucked, and, smiling, held it up,While from her hand the wild, sweet scentI drank as from a cup.O potent witchery of smell!The dust-dry leaves to life return,And she who plucked them owns the spellAnd lifts her ghostly fern.Or sense or spirit? Who shall sayWhat touch the chord of memory thrills?It passed, and left the August dayAblaze on lonely hills.
From Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome,From Mad to Saco river,For patriarchs of the primal woodWe sought with vain endeavor.And then we said: "The giants oldAre lost beyond retrieval;This pygmy growth the axe has sparedIs not the wood primeval."Look where we will o'er vale and hill,How idle are our searchesFor broad-girthed maples, wide-limbed oaks,Centennial pines and birches."Their tortured limbs the axe and sawHave changed to beams and trestles;They rest in walls, they float on seas,They rot in sunken vessels."This shorn and wasted mountain landOf underbrush and boulder,—Who thinks to see its full-grown treeMust live a century older."At last to us a woodland path,To open sunset leading,Revealed the Anakim of pinesOur wildest wish exceeding.Alone, the level sun before;Below, the lake's green islands;Beyond, in misty distance dim,The rugged Northern Highlands.Dark Titan on his Sunset HillOf time and change defiantHow dwarfed the common woodland seemed,Before the old-time giant!What marvel that, in simpler daysOf the world's early childhood,Men crowned with garlands, gifts, and praiseSuch monarchs of the wild-wood?That Tyrian maids with flower and songDanced through the hill grove's spaces,And hoary-bearded Druids foundIn woods their holy places?With somewhat of that Pagan aweWith Christian reverence blending,We saw our pine-tree's mighty armsAbove our heads extending.We heard his needles' mystic rune,Now rising, and now dying,As erst Dodona's priestess heardThe oak leaves prophesying.Was it the half-unconscious moanOf one apart and mateless,The weariness of unshared power,The loneliness of greatness?O dawns and sunsets, lend to himYour beauty and your wonder!Blithe sparrow, sing thy summer songHis solemn shadow under!Play lightly on his slender keys,O wind of summer, wakingFor hills like these the sound of seasOn far-off beaches breaking,And let the eagle and the crowFind shelter in his branches,When winds shake down his winter snowIn silver avalanches.The brave are braver for their cheer,The strongest need assurance,The sigh of longing makes not lessThe lesson of endurance.1885.
Talk not of sad November, when a dayOf warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of noon,And a wind, borrowed from some morn of June,Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless spray.On the unfrosted pool the pillared pinesLay their long shafts of shadow: the small rill,Singing a pleasant song of summer still,A line of silver, down the hill-slope shines.Hushed the bird-voices and the hum of bees,In the thin grass the crickets pipe no more;But still the squirrel hoards his winter store,And drops his nut-shells from the shag-bark trees.Softly the dark green hemlocks whisper: highAbove, the spires of yellowing larches show,Where the woodpecker and home-loving crowAnd jay and nut-hatch winter's threat defy.O gracious beauty, ever new and old!O sights and sounds of nature, doubly dearWhen the low sunshine warns the closing yearOf snow-blown fields and waves of Arctic cold!Close to my heart I fold each lovely thingThe sweet day yields; and, not disconsolate,With the calm patience of the woods I waitFor leaf and blossom when God gives us Spring!29th, Eleventh Month, 1886.
A beautiful and happy girl,With step as light as summer air,Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl,Shadowed by many a careless curlOf unconfined and flowing hair;A seeming child in everything,Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms,As Nature wears the smile of SpringWhen sinking into Summer's arms.A mind rejoicing in the lightWhich melted through its graceful bower,Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright,And stainless in its holy white,Unfolding like a morning flowerA heart, which, like a fine-toned lute,With every breath of feeling woke,And, even when the tongue was mute,From eye and lip in music spoke.How thrills once more the lengthening chainOf memory, at the thought of thee!Old hopes which long in dust have lainOld dreams, come thronging back again,And boyhood lives again in me;I feel its glow upon my cheek,Its fulness of the heart is mine,As when I leaned to hear thee speak,Or raised my doubtful eye to thine.I hear again thy low replies,I feel thy arm within my own,And timidly again upriseThe fringed lids of hazel eyes,With soft brown tresses overblown.Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,Of moonlit wave and willowy way,Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves,And smiles and tones more dear than they!Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiledMy picture of thy youth to see,When, half a woman, half a child,Thy very artlessness beguiled,And folly's self seemed wise in thee;I too can smile, when o'er that hourThe lights of memory backward stream,Yet feel the while that manhood's powerIs vainer than my boyhood's dream.Years have passed on, and left their trace,Of graver care and deeper thought;And unto me the calm, cold faceOf manhood, and to thee the graceOf woman's pensive beauty brought.More wide, perchance, for blame than praise,The school-boy's humble name has flown;Thine, in the green and quiet waysOf unobtrusive goodness known.And wider yet in thought and deedDiverge our pathways, one in youth;Thine the Genevan's sternest creed,While answers to my spirit's needThe Derby dalesman's simple truth.For thee, the priestly rite and prayer,And holy day, and solemn psalm;For me, the silent reverence whereMy brethren gather, slow and calm.Yet hath thy spirit left on meAn impress Time has worn not out,And something of myself in thee,A shadow from the past, I see,Lingering, even yet, thy way about;Not wholly can the heart unlearnThat lesson of its better hours,Not yet has Time's dull footstep wornTo common dust that path of flowers.Thus, while at times before our eyesThe shadows melt, and fall apart,And, smiling through them, round us liesThe warm light of our morning skies,—The Indian Summer of the heart!In secret sympathies of mind,In founts of feeling which retainTheir pure, fresh flow, we yet may findOur early dreams not wholly vain1841.