Chapter 3
"Rain and rain! And rain and rain!" Yesterday we muttered Grimly as the grim refrain That the thunders uttered: All the heavens under cloud-- All the sunshine sleeping; All the grasses limply bowed With their weight of weeping.
Sigh and sigh! And sigh and sigh! Never end of sighing; Rain and rain for our reply-- Hopes half drowned and dying; Peering through the window-pane, Naught but endless raining-- Endless sighing, and as vain, Endlessly complaining,
Shine and shine! And shine and shine! Ah! To-day the splendor--! All this glory yours and mine-- God! But God is tender! We to sigh instead of sing, Yesterday, in sorrow, While the Lord was fashioning This for our To-morrow!
_The Blossoms on the Trees_
Blossoms crimson, white, or blue, Purple, pink, and every hue, From sunny skies, to tintings drowned In dusky drops of dew, I praise you all, wherever found, And love you through and through--; But, Blossoms On The Trees, With your breath upon the breeze There's nothing all the world around As half as sweet as you!
Could the rhymer only wring All the sweetness to the lees Of all the kisses clustering In juicy Used-to-bes, To dip his rhymes therein and sing The blossoms on the trees--, "O Blossoms on the Trees," He would twitter, trill, and coo, "However sweet, such songs as these Are not as sweet as you--: For you are blooming melodies The eyes may listen to!"
_Last Night-- And This_
Last night-- how deep the darkness was! And well I knew its depths, because I waded it from shore to shore, Thinking to reach the light no more.
She would not even touch my hand---. The winds rose and the cedars fanned The moon out, and the stars fled back In heaven and hid-- and all was black!
But ah! To-night a summons came, Signed with a tear-drop for a name, For as I wondering kissed it, lo A line beneath it told me so.
And now-- the moon hangs over me A disk of dazzling brilliancy, And every star-tip stabs my sights With splintered glitterings of light!
_A Discouraging Model_
Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing, With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly's wing, Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air, And a knot of red roses sown in under there Where the shadows are lost in her hair.
Then a cameo face, carven in on a ground Of that shadowy hair where the roses are wound; And the gleam of a smile, O as fair and as faint And as sweet as the master of old used to paint Round the lips of their favorite saint!
And that lace at her throat-- and fluttering hands Snowing there, with a grace that no art understands, The flakes of their touches-- first fluttering at The bow-- then the roses-- the hair and then that Little tilt of the Gainsborough hat.
Ah, what artist on earth with a model like this, Holding not on his palette the tint of a kiss, Nor a pigment to hint of the hue of her hair Nor the gold of her smile-- O what artist could dare To expect a result half so fair?
_Back From a Two-years' Sentence_
Back from a two-years' sentence! And though it had been ten, You think, I were scarred no deeper In the eyes of my fellow-men. "My fellow-men--?" Sounds like a satire, You think-- and I so allow, Here in my home since childhood, Yet more than a stranger now!
Pardon--! Not wholly a stranger--, For I have a wife and child: That woman has wept for two long years, And yet last night she smiled--! Smiled, as I leapt from the platform Of the midnight train, and then-- All that I knew was that smile of hers, And our babe in my arms again!
Back from a two-years' sentence-- But I've thought the whole thing through--, A hint of it came when the bars swung back And I looked straight up in the blue Of the blessed skies with my hat off! O-ho! I've a wife and child: That woman has wept for two long years, And yet last night she smiled!
_The Wandering Jew_
The stars are falling, and the sky Is like a field of faded flowers; The winds on weary wings go by; The moon hides, and the tempest lowers; And still through every clime and age I wander on a pilgrimage That all men know an idle quest, For that the goal I seek is-- Rest!
I hear the voice of summer streams, And following, I find the brink Of cooling springs, with childish dreams Returning as I bend to drink-- But suddenly, with startled eyes, My face looks on its grim disguise Of long gray beard; and so, distressed, I hasten on, nor taste of rest.
I come upon a merry group Of children in the dusky wood, Who answer back the owlet's whoop, That laughs as it had understood; And I would pause a little space, But that each happy blossom-face Is like to one His hands have blessed Who sent me forth in search of rest.
Sometimes I fain would stay my feet In shady lanes, where huddled kine Couch in the grasses cool and sweet, And lift their patient eyes to mine; But I, for thoughts that ever then Go back to Bethlehem again, Must needs fare on my weary quest, And weep for very need of rest.
Is there no end? I plead in vain: Lost worlds nor living answer me. Since Pontius Pilate's awful reign Have I not passed eternity? Have I not drunk the fetid breath Of every fevered phase of death, And come unscathed through every pest And scourge and plague that promised rest?
Have I not seen the stars go out That shed their light o'er Galilee, And mighty kingdoms tossed about And crumbled clod-like in the sea? Dead ashes of dead ages blow And cover me like drifting snow, And time laughs on as 'twere a jest That I have any need of rest.
_Becalmed_
1 Would that the winds might only blow As they blew in the golden long ago--! Laden with odors of Orient isles Where ever and ever the sunshine smiles, And the bright sands blend with the shady trees, And the lotus blooms in the midst of these.
2 Warm winds won from the midland vales To where the tress of the Siren trails O'er the flossy tip of the mountain phlox And the bare limbs twined in the crested rocks, High above as the seagulls flap Their lopping wings at the thunder-clap.
3 Ah! That the winds might rise and blow The great surge up from the port below, Bloating the sad, lank, silken sails Of the Argo out with the swift, sweet gales That blew from Colchis when Jason had His love's full will and his heart was glad-- When Medea's voice was soft and low. Ah! That the winds might rise and blow!
_To Santa Claus_
Most tangible of all the gods that be, O Santa Claus-- our own since Infancy! As first we scampered to thee-- now, as then, Take us as children to thy heart again.
Be wholly good to us, just as of old: As a pleased father, let thine arms infold Us, homed within the haven of thy love, And all the cheer and wholesomeness thereof.
Thou lone reality, when O so long Life's unrealities have wrought us wrong: Ambition hath allured us--, fame likewise, And all that promised honor in men's eyes.
Throughout the world's evasions, wiles, and shifts, Thou only bidest stable as thy gifts--: A grateful king re-ruleth from thy lap, Crowned with a little tinselled soldier-cap:
A mighty general-- a nation's pride-- Thou givest again a rocking-horse to ride, And wildly glad he groweth as the grim Old jurist with the drum thou givest him:
The sculptor's chisel, at thy mirth's command, Is as a whistle in his boyish hand; The painters model fadeth utterly, And there thou standest--, and he painteth thee--:
Most like a winter pippin, sound and fine And tingling-red that ripe old face of thine, Set in thy frosty beard of cheek and chin As midst the snows the thaws of spring set in.
Ho! Santa Claus-- our own since Infancy-- Most tangible of all the gods that be--! As first we scampered to thee-- now, as then, Take us as children to thy heart again.
_Where the Children used to Play_
The old farm-home is Mother's yet and mine, And filled it is with plenty and to spare--, But we are lonely here in life's decline, Though fortune smiles around us everywhere: We look across the gold Of the harvests, as of old-- The corn, the fragrant clover, and the hay; But most we turn our gaze, As with eyes of other days, To the orchard where the children used to play.
O from our life's full measure And rich hoard of worldly treasure We often turn our weary eyes away, And hand in hand we wander Down the old path winding yonder To the orchard where the children used to play.
Our sloping pasture-lands are filled with herds; The barn and granary-bins are bulging o'ver; The grove's a paradise of singing birds-- The woodland brook leaps laughing by the door; Yet lonely, lonely still, Let us prosper as we will, Our old hearts seem so empty everyway-- We can only through a mist See the faces we have kissed In the orchard where the children used to play.
O from our life's full measure And rich hoard of worldly treasure We often turn our weary eyes away, And hand in hand we wander Down the old path winding yonder To the orchard where the children used to play.
_A Glimpse of Pan_
I caught but a glimpse of him. Summer was here. And I strayed from the town and its dust and heat. And walked in a wood, while the noon was near, Where the shadows were cool, and the atmosphere Was misty with fragrances stirred by my feet From surges of blossoms that billowed sheer Of the grasses, green and sweet.
And I peered through a vista of leaning tree, Tressed with long tangles of vines that swept To the face of a river, that answered these With vines in the wave like the vines in the breeze, Till the yearning lips of the ripples crept And kissed them, with quavering ecstasies, And wistfully laughed and wept
And there, like a dream in swoon, I swear I saw Pan lying--, his limbs in the dew And the shade, and his face in the dazzle and glare Of the glad sunshine; while everywhere, Over across, and around him blew Filmy dragon-flies hither and there, And little white butterflies, two and two, In eddies of odorous air.
Sonnets
_Pan_
This Pan is but an idle god, I guess, Since all the fair midsummer of my dreams He loiters listlessly by woody streams, Soaking the lush glooms up with laziness; Or drowsing while the maiden-winds caress Him prankishly, and powder him with gleams Of sifted sunshine. And he ever seems Drugged with a joy unutterable-- unless His low pipes whistle hints of it far out Across the ripples to the dragon-fly That like a wind-born blossom blown about, Drops quiveringly down, as though to die-- Then lifts and wavers on, as if in doubt Whether to fan his wings or fly without.
_Dusk_
The frightened herds of clouds across the sky Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day Into the dusky forest-lands of gray And sombre twilight. Far and faint, and high, The wild goose trails his harrow, with a cry Sad as the wail of some poor castaway Who sees a vessel drifting far astray Of his last hope, and lays him down to die. The children, riotous from school, grow bold And quarrel with the wind whose angry gust Plucks off the summer-hat, and flaps the fold Of many a crimson cloak, and twirls the dust In spiral shapes grotesque, and dims the gold Of gleaming tresses with the blur of rust.
_June_
O queenly month of indolent repose! I drink thy breath in sips of rare perfume, As in thy downy lap of clover-bloom I nestle like a drowsy child and doze The lazy hours away. The zephyr throws The shifting shuttle of the Summer's loom And weaves a damask-work of gleam and gloom Before thy listless feet. The lily blows A bugle-call of fragrance o'er the glade; And wheeling into ranks, with plume and spear, Thy harvest-armies gather on parade; While faint and far away, yet pure and clear, A voice calls out of alien lands of shade--: All hail the Peerless Goddess of the Year!
_Silence_
Thousands of thousands of hushed years ago, Out on the edge of Chaos, all alone I stood on peaks of vapor, high upthrown Above a sea that knew nor ebb nor flow, Nor any motion won of winds that blow, Nor any sound of watery wail or moan, Nor lisp of wave, nor wandering undertone Of any tide lost in the night below. So still it was, I mind me, as I laid My thirsty ear against mine own faint sigh To drink of that, I sipped it, half afraid 'Twas but the ghost of a dead voice spilled by The one starved star that tottered through the shade And came tiptoeing toward me down the sky.
_Sleep_
Thou drowsy god, whose blurred eyes, half awink Muse on me--, drifting out upon thy dreams, I lave my soul as in enchanted streams Where revelling satyrs pipe along the brink, And tipsy with the melody they drink, Uplift their dangling hooves, and down the beams Of sunshine dance like motes. Thy languor seems An ocean-depth of love wherein I sink Like some fond Argonaut, right willingly--, Because of wooing eyes upturned to mine, And siren-arms that coil their sorcery About my neck, with kisses so divine, The heavens reel above me, and the sea Swallows and licks its wet lips over me.
_Her Hair_
The beauty of her hair bewilders me-- Pouring adown the brow, its cloven tide Swirling about the ears on either side And storming round the neck tumultuously: Or like the lights of old antiquity Through mullioned windows, in cathedrals wide Spilled moltenly o'er figures deified In chastest marble, nude of drapery. And so I love it--. Either unconfined; Or plaited in close braidings manifold; Or smoothly drawn; or indolently twined In careless knots whose coilings come unrolled At any lightest kiss; or by the wind Whipped out in flossy ravellings of gold.
_Dearth_
I hold your trembling hand to-night-- and yet I may not know what wealth of bliss is mine, My heart is such a curious design Of trust and jealousy! Your eyes are wet-- So must I think they jewel some regret--, And lo, the loving arms that round me twine Cling only as the tendrils of a vine Whose fruit has long been gathered: I forget, While crimson clusters of your kisses press Their wine out on my lips, my royal fair Of rapture, since blind fancy needs must guess They once poured out their sweetness otherwhere, With fuller flavoring of happiness Than e'en your broken sobs may now declare.
_A Voice From the Farm_
It is my dream to have you here with me, Out of the heated city's dust and din-- Here where the colts have room to gambol in, And kine to graze, in clover to the knee. I want to see your wan face happily Lit with the wholesome smiles that have not been In use since the old games you used to win When we pitched horseshoes: And I want to be At utter loaf with you in this dim land Of grove and meadow, while the crickets make Our own talk tedious, and the bat wields His bulky flight, as we cease converse and In a dusk like velvet smoothly take Our way toward home across the dewy fields.
_The Serenade_
The midnight is not more bewildering To her drowsed eyes, than to her ears, the sound Of dim, sweet singing voices, interwound With purl of flute and subtle twang of string, Strained through the lattice, where the roses cling And, with their fragrance, waft the notes around Her haunted senses. Thirsting beyond bound Of her slow-yielding dreams, the lilt and swing Of the mysterious delirious tune, She drains like some strange opiate, with awed eyes Upraised against her casement, where aswoon, The stars fail from her sight, and up the skies Of alien azure rolls the full round moon Like some vast bubble blown of summer noon.
_Art and Love_
He faced his canvas (as a seer whose ken Pierces the crust of this existence through) And smiled beyond on that his genius knew Ere mated with his being. Conscious then Of his high theme alone, he smiled again Straight back upon himself in many a hue And tint, and light and shade, which slowly grew Enfeatured of a fair girl's face, as when First time she smiles for love's sake with no fear. So wrought he, witless that behind him leant A woman, with old features, dim and sear, And glamoured eyes that felt the brimming tear, And with a voice, like some sad instrument, That sighing said, "I'm dead there; love me here!"
_Longfellow_
The winds have talked with him confidingly; The trees have whispered to him; and the night Hath held him gently as a mother might, And taught him all sad tones of melody: The mountains have bowed to him; and the sea, In clamorous waves, and murmurs exquisite, Hath told him all her sorrow and delight-- Her legends fair-- her darkest mystery. His verse blooms like a flower, night and day; Bees cluster round his rhymes; and twitterings Of lark and swallow, in an endless May, Are mingling with the tender songs he sings--. Nor shall he cease to sing-- in every lay Of Nature's voice he sings-- and will alway.
_Indiana_
Our Land-- our Home-- the common home indeed Of soil-born children and adopted ones-- The stately daughters and the stalwart sons Of Industry--: All greeting and godspeed! O home to proudly live for, and if need Be proudly die for, with the roar of guns Blent with our latest prayer--. So died men once... Lo Peace...! As we look on the land They freed-- Its harvests all in ocean-over flow Poured round autumnal coasts in billowy gold-- Its corn and wine and balmed fruits and flow'rs--, We know the exaltation that they know Who now, steadfast inheritors, behold The Land Elysian, marvelling "This is ours?"
_Time_
1 The ticking-- ticking-- ticking of the clock--! That vexed me so last night--! "For though Time keeps Such drowsy watch," I moaned, "he never sleeps, But only nods above the world to mock Its restless occupant, then rudely rock It as the cradle of a babe that weeps!" I seemed to see the seconds piled in heaps Like sand about me; and at every shock O' the bell, the piled sands were swirled away As by a desert-storm that swept the earth Stark as a granary floor, whereon the gray And mist-bedrizzled moon amidst the dearth Came crawling, like a sickly child, to lay Its pale face next mine own and weep for day.
2 Wait for the morning! Ah! We wait indeed For daylight, we who toss about through stress Of vacant-armed desires and emptiness Of all the warm, warm touches that we need, And the warm kisses upon which we feed Our famished lips in fancy! May God bless The starved lips of us with but one caress Warm as the yearning blood our poor hearts bleed...! A wild prayer--! Bite thy pillow, praying so-- Toss this side, and whirl that, and moan for dawn; Let the clock's seconds dribble out their woe, And Time be drained of sorrow! Long ago We heard the crowing cock, with answer drawn As hoarsely sad at throat as sobs... Pray on!
Grant At Rest-- August 8, 1885
Sir Launcelot rode overthwart and endlong in a wide forest, and held no path but as wild adventure led him... And he returned and came again to his horse, and took off his saddle and his bridle, and let him pasture; and unlaced his helm, and ungirdled his sword, and laid him down to sleep upon his shield before the cross. --Age of Chivalary
_Grant_
What shall we say of the soldier. Grant, His sword put by and his great soul free? How shall we cheer him now or chant His requiem befittingly? The fields of his conquest now are seen Ranged no more with his armed men-- But the rank and file of the gold and green Of the waving grain is there again.
Though his valiant life is a nation's pride, And his death heroic and half divine, And our grief as great as the world is wide, There breaks in speech but a single line--: We loved him living, revere him dead--! A silence then on our lips is laid: We can say no thing that has not been said, Nor pray one prayer that has not been prayed.
But a spirit within us speaks: and lo, We lean and listen to wondrous words That have a sound as of winds that blow, And the voice of waters and low of herds; And we hear, as the song flows on serene, The neigh of horses, and then the beat Of hooves that skurry o'er pastures green, And the patter and pad of a boy's bare feet.
A brave lad, wearing a manly brow, Knit as with problems of grave dispute, And a face, like the bloom of the orchard bough, Pink and pallid, but resolute; And flushed it grows as the clover-bloom, And fresh it gleams as the morning dew, As he reins his steed where the quick quails boom Up from the grasses he races through.
And ho! As he rides what dreams are his? And what have the breezes to suggest--? Do they whisper to him of shells that whiz O'er fields made ruddy with wrongs redressed? Does the hawk above him an Eagle float? Does he thrill and his boyish heart beat high, Hearing the ribbon about his throat Flap as a Flag as the winds go by?
And does he dream of the Warrior's fame-- This Western boy in his rustic dress? For in miniature, this is the man that came Riding out of the Wilderness--! The selfsame figure-- the knitted brow-- The eyes full steady-- the lips full mute-- And the face, like the bloom of the orchard bough, Pink and pallid, but resolute.
Ay, this is the man, with features grim And stoical as the Sphinx's own, That heard the harsh guns calling him, As musical as the bugle blown, When the sweet spring heavens were clouded o'er With a tempest, glowering and wild, And our country's flag bowed down before Its bursting wrath as a stricken child.
Thus, ready mounted and booted and spurred, He loosed his bridle and dashed away--! Like a roll of drums were his hoof-beats heard, Like the shriek of the fife his charger's neigh! And over his shoulder and backward blown, We heard his voice, and we saw the sod Reel, as our wild steeds chased his own As though hurled on by the hand of God!
And still, in fancy, we see him ride In the blood-red front of a hundred frays, His face set stolid, but glorified As a knight's of the old Arthurian days: And victor ever as courtly too, Gently lifting the vanquished foe, And staying him with a hand as true As dealt the deadly avenging blow.
So brighter than all of the cluster of stars Of the flag enshrouding his form to-day, His face shines forth from the grime of wars With a glory that shall not pass away: He rests at last: he has borne his part Of salutes and salvos and cheers on cheers-- But O the sobs of his country's heart, And the driving rain of a nations tears!
In Dialect
_Old Fashioned Roses_
They ain't no style about 'em, And they're sorto' pale and faded, Yit the doorway here, without 'em, Would be lonesomer, and shaded With a good 'eal blacker shudder Than the morning-glories makes, And the sunshine would look sadder Fer their good old-fashion' sakes.
I like 'em 'cause they kindo'-- Sorto' make a feller like 'em! And I tell you, when I find a Bunch out whur the sun kin strike 'em, It allus sets me thinkin' O' the ones 'at used to grow And peek in thro' the chinkin' O' the cabin, don't you know!
And then I think o' mother, And how she ust to love 'em-- When they wuzn't any other, 'Less she found 'em up above 'em! And her eyes, afore she shut 'em, Whispered with a smile and said We must pick a bunch and putt 'em In her hand when she wuz dead.
But as I wuz a-sayin', They ain't no style about 'em Very gaudy er displayin', But I wouldn't be without 'em--, 'Cause I'm happier in these posies, And the hollyhawks and sich, Than the hummin'-bird 'at noses In the roses of the rich.
_Griggsby's Station_
Pap's got his patent-right, and rich is all creation; But where's the peace and comfort that we all had before? Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station-- Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore!
The likes of us a-livin' here! It's jest a mortal pity To see us in this great big house, with cyarpets on the stairs, And the pump right in the kitchen! And the city! City! City And nothin' but the city all around us ever'wheres!
Climb clean above the roof and look from the steeple, And never see a robin, nor a beech or ellum tree! And right here in ear-shot of at least a thousan' people, And none that neighbors with us or we want to go and see!
Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station-- Back where the latch-strings a-hangin' from the door, And ever' neighbor round the place is dear as a relation-- Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore!