All slumb'rous images that be, combined,To this white couch and cool shall woo thee, Sleep!First will I think on fields of grasses deepIn gray-green flower, o'er which the transient windRuns like a smile; and next will call to mindHow glistening poplar-tops, when breezes creepAmong their leaves, a tender motion keep,Stroking the sky, like touch of lovers kind.
Ah, having felt thy calm kiss on mine eyes,All night inspiring thy divine pure breath,I shall awake as into godhood born,And with a fresh, undaunted soul arise,Clear as the blue convolvulus at morn.—Dear bedfellow, deals thus thy brother, Death?
Praised be our Lord (to echo the sweet phraseOf saintly Francis) for our sister Snow:Whose soft, soft coming never man may knowBy any sound; whose down-light touch allaysAll fevers of worn earth. She clothes the daysIn garments without spot, and hence doth goHer noiseless shuttle swiftly to and fro,And very pure, and pleasant, are her ways.
But yesterday, how loveless looked the skies!How cold the sun's last glance, and unbenign,Across the field forsaken, russet-leaved!Now pearly peace on all the landscape lies.—Wast thou not sent us, Sister, for a signOf that vast Mercy of God, else unconceived?
"Backward," he said, "dear heart I like to lookTo those half-spring, half-winter days, when firstWe drew together, ere the leaf-buds burst.Sunbeams were silver yet, keen gusts yet shookThe boughs. Have you remembered that kind book,That for our sake Galeotto's part rehearsed,(The friend of lovers,—this time blessed, not cursed!)And that best hour, when reading we forsook?"
She, listening, wore the smile a mother wearsAt childish fancies needless to control;Yet felt a fine, hid pain with pleasure blend.Better it seemed to think that love of theirs,Native as breath, eternal as the soul,Knew no beginning, could not have an end.
He loved her; having felt his love beginWith that first look,—as lover oft avers.He made pale flowers his pleading ministers,Impressed sweet music, drew the springtime inTo serve his suit; but when he could not win,Forgot her face and those gray eyes of hers;And at her name his pulse no longer stirs,And life goes on as though she had not been.
She never loved him; but she loved Love so,So reverenced Love, that all her being shookAt his demand whose entrance she denied.Her thoughts of him such tender color tookAs western skies that keep the afterglow.The words he spoke were with her till she died.
That sunless day no living shadow sweptAcross the hills, fleet shadow chasing light,Twin of the sailing cloud: but, mists wool white,Slow-stealing mists, on those heaved shoulders crept,And wrought about the strong hills while they sleptIn witches' wise, and rapt their forms from sight.Dreams were they; less than dream, the noblest heightAnd farthest; and the chilly woodland wept.
A sunless day and sad: yet all the whileWithin the grave green twilight of the wood,inscrutable, immutable, apart,Hearkening the brook, whose song she understood,The secret birch-tree kept her silver smile,Strange as the peace that gleams at sorrow's heart.
This windy sunlit morning after rain,The wet bright laurel laughs with beckoning gleamIn the blown wood, whence breaks the wild white streamRushing and flashing, glorying in its gain;Nor swerves nor parts, but with a swift disdainO'erleaps the boulders lying in long dream,Lapped in cold moss; and in its joy doth seemA wood-born creature bursting from a chain.
And "Triumph, triumph, triumph!" is its hoarseFierce-whispered word. O fond, and dost not knowThy triumph on another wise must be,—To render all the tribute of thy force,And lose thy little being in the flowOf the unvaunting river toward the sea!
The blackberry's bloom, when last we went this way,Veiled all her bowsome rods with trembling white;The robin's sunset breast gave forth delightAt sunset hour; the wind was warm with May.Armored in ice the sere stems arch to-day,Each tiny thorn encased and argent bright;Where clung the birds that long have taken flight,Dead songless leaves cling fluttering on the spray.
O hand in mine, that mak'st all paths the same,Being paths of peace, where falls nor chill nor gloom,Made sweet with ardors of an inward spring!I hold thee—frozen skies to rosy flameAre turned, and snows to living snows of bloom,And once again the gold-brown thrushes sing.
I had remembrance of a summer morn,When all the glistening field was softly stirredAnd like a child's in happy sleep I heardThe low and healthful breathing of the corn.Late when the sumach's red was dulled and worn,And fainter grew the trite and troublous wordOf tristful cricket, that replaced the bird,I sought the slope, and found a waste forlorn.
Against that cold clear west, whence winter peers,All spectral stood the bleached stalks thin-leaved,Dry as papyrus kept a thousand years,And hissing whispered to the wind that grieved,It was a dream—we have no goodly ears—There was no summer-time—deceived! deceived!
White fog around, soft snow beneath the tread,All sunless, windless, tranced, the morning lay;All noiseless, trackless, new, the well-known way.The silence weighed upon the sense; in dread,"Alone, I am alone," I shuddering said,"And wander in a region where no rayHas ever shone, and as on earth's first dayOr last, my kind are not yet born or dead."
Yet not afar, meanwhile, there faltered feetLike mine, through that wide mystery of the snow,Nor could the old accustomed paths divine;And even as mine, unheard spake voices low,And hearts were near, that as my own heart beat,Warm hands, and faces fashioned like to mine.
Into what beech or silvern birch, O friendSuspected ever of a dryad strain,Hast crept at last, delighting to regainThy sylvan house? Now whither shall I wend,Or by what wingèd post my greeting send,Bird, butterfly, or bee? Shall three moons wane,And yet not found?—Ah, surely it was painOf old, for mortal youth his heart to lendTo any hamadryad! In his hourOf simple trust, wild impulse him bereaves:She flees, she seeks her strait enmossèd bowerAnd while he, searching, softly calls, and grieves,Oblivious, high above she laughs in leaves,Or patters tripping talk to the quick shower.
Though pent in stony streets, 'tis joy to know,'Tis joy, although we breathe a fainter air,The spirit of those places far and fairThat we have loved, abides; and fern-scents flowOut of the wood's heart still, and shadows growLong on remembered roads as warm days wear;And still the dark wild water, in its lair,The narrow chasm, stirs blindly to and fro.
Delight is in the sea-gull's dancing wings,And sunshine wakes to rose the ruddy hueOf rocks; and from her tall wind-slanted stemA soft bright plume the goldenrod outflingsAlong the breeze, above a sea whose blueIs like the light that kindles through a gem.
'There needs no crown to mark the forest's king.'Thus, long ago thou sang'st the sound-heart treeSacred to sovereign Jove, and dear to theeSince first, a venturous youth with eyes of spring,—Whose pilgrim-staff each side put forth a wing,—Beneath the oak thou lingeredst lovinglyTo crave, as largess of his majesty,Firm-rooted strength, and grace of leaves that sing.
He gave; we thank him! Graciousness as grave,And power as easeful as his own he gave;Long broodings rich with sun, and laughters kind;And singing leaves, whose later bronze is dearAs the first amber of the budding year,—Whose voices answer the autumnnal wind.
He wandered from us long, oh, long ago,Rare singer, with the note unsatisfied;Into what charmèd wood, what shade star-eyedWith the wind's April darlings, none may know.We lost him. Songless, one with seed to sow,Keen-smiling toiler, came in place, and pliedHis strength in furrowed field till eventide,And passed to slumber when the sun was low.
But now,—as though Death spoke some mystic wordSolving a spell,—present to thought appearsThe morn's estray, not him we saw but late;And on his lips the strain that once we heard,And in his hand, cool as with Springtime's tears,The melancholy wood-flowers delicate.
One soiled and shamed and foiled in this world's fight,Deserter from the host of God, that hereStill darkly struggles,—waked from death in fear,And strove to screen his forehead from the whiteAnd blinding glory of the awful Light,The revelation and reproach austere.Then with strong hand outstretched a Shape drew near,Bright-browed, majestic, armored like a knight.
"Great Angel, servant of the Highest, whyStoop'st thou to me?" although his lips were mute,His eyes inquired. The Shining One replied:"Thy Book, thy birth, life of thy life am I,Son of thy soul, thy youth's forgotten fruit.We two go up to judgment side by side."