Chapter 3

Cool-throated flowers that avoid the day's Too fervid kisses; every bud that drinks The tipsy dew and to the starlight plays Nocturnes of fragrance, thy wing'd shadow links In bonds of secret brotherhood and faith; O bearer of their order's shibboleth, Like some pale symbol fluttering o'er these pinks.

What dost them whisper in the balsam's ear That sets it blushing, or the hollyhock's,-- A syllabled silence that no man may hear,-- As dreamily upon its stem it rocks? What spell dost bear from listening plant to plant, Like some white witch, some ghostly ministrant, Some specter of some perished flower of phlox?

O voyager of that universe which lies Between the four walls of this garden fair,-- Whose constellations are the fireflies That wheel their instant courses everywhere,-- Mid faery firmaments wherein one sees Mimic Boötes and the Pleiades, Thou steerest like some faery ship of air.

Gnome-wrought of moonbeam-fluff and gossamer, Silent as scent, perhaps thou chariotest Mab or King Oberon; or, haply, her His queen, Titania, on some midnight quest.-- Oh for the herb, the magic euphrasy, That should unmask thee to mine eyes, ah me! And all that world at which my soul hath guessed!

THE OLD FARM

Dormered and verandaed, cool, Locust-girdled, on the hill; Stained with weather-wear, and dull- Streak'd with lichens; every sill Thresholding the beautiful;

I can see it standing there, Brown above the woodland deep, Wrapped in lights of lavender, By the warm wind rocked asleep, Violet shadows everywhere.

I remember how the Spring, Liberal-lapped, bewildered its Acred orchards, murmuring, Kissed to blossom; budded bits Where the wood-thrush came to sing.

Barefoot Spring, at first who trod, Like a beggermaid, adown The wet woodland; where the god, With the bright sun for a crown And the firmament for rod,

Met her; clothed her; wedded her; Her Cophetua: when, lo! All the hill, one breathing blur, Burst in beauty; gleam and glow Blent with pearl and lavender.

Seckel, blackheart, palpitant Rained their bleaching strays; and white Snowed the damson, bent aslant; Rambow-tree and romanite Seemed beneath deep drifts to pant.

And it stood there, brown and gray, In the bee-boom and the bloom, In the shadow and the ray, In the passion and perfume, Grave as age among the gay.

Wild with laughter romped the clear Boyish voices round its walls; Rare wild-roses were the dear Girlish faces in its halls, Music-haunted all the year.

Far before it meadows full Of green pennyroyal sank; Clover-dotted as with wool Here and there; with now a bank Hot of color; and the cool

Dark-blue shadows unconfined Of the clouds rolled overhead: Clouds, from which the summer wind Blew with rain, and freshly shed Dew upon the flowerkind.

Where through mint and gypsy-lily Runs the rocky brook away, Musical among the hilly Solitudes,--its flashing spray Sunlight-dashed or forest-stilly,--

Buried in deep sassafras, Memory follows up the hill Still some cowbell's mellow brass, Where the ruined water-mill Looms, half-hid in cane and grass....

Oh, the farmhouse! is it set On the hilltop still? 'mid musk Of the meads? where, violet, Deepens all the dreaming dusk, And the locust-trees hang wet.

While the sunset, far and low, On its westward windows dashes Primrose or pomegranate glow; And above, in glimmering splashes, Lilac stars the heavens sow.

Sleeps it still among its roses,-- Oldtime roses? while the choir Of the lonesome insects dozes: And the white moon, drifting higher, O'er its mossy roof reposes-- Sleeps it still among its roses?

THE WHIPPOORWILL

I

Above lone woodland ways that led To dells the stealthy twilights tread The west was hot geranium red; And still, and still, Along old lanes the locusts sow With clustered pearls the Maytimes know, Deep in the crimson afterglow, We heard the homeward cattle low, And then the far-off, far-off woe Of "whippoorwill!" of "whippoorwill!"

II

Beneath the idle beechen boughs We heard the far bells of the cows Come slowly jangling towards the house; And still, and still, Beyond the light that would not die Out of the scarlet-haunted sky; Beyond the evening-star's white eye Of glittering chalcedony, Drained out of dusk the plaintive cry Of "whippoorwill," of "whippoorwill."

III

And in the city oft, when swims The pale moon o'er the smoke that dims Its disc, I dream of wildwood limbs; And still, and still, I seem to hear, where shadows grope Mid ferns and flowers that dewdrops rope,-- Lost in faint deeps of heliotrope Above the clover-sweetened slope,-- Retreat, despairing, past all hope, The whippoorwill, the whippoorwill.

REVEALMENT

A sense of sadness in the golden air; A pensiveness, that has no part in care, As if the Season, by some woodland pool, Braiding the early blossoms in her hair, Seeing her loveliness reflected there, Had sighed to find herself so beautiful.

A breathlessness; a feeling as of fear; Holy and dim, as of a mystery near, As if the World, about us, whispering went With lifted finger and hand-hollowed ear, Hearkening a music, that we cannot hear, Haunting the quickening earth and firmament.

A prescience of the soul that has no name; Expectancy that is both wild and tame, As if the Earth, from out its azure ring Of heavens, looked to see, as white as flame,-- As Perseus once to chained Andromeda came,-- The swift, divine revealment of the Spring.

HEPATICAS

In the frail hepaticas,-- That the early Springtide tossed, Sapphire-like, along the ways Of the woodlands that she crossed,-- I behold, with other eyes, Footprints of a dream that flies.

One who leads me; whom I seek: In whose loveliness there is All the glamour that the Greek Knew as wind-borne Artemis.-- I am mortal. Woe is me! Her sweet immortality!

Spirit, must I always fare, Following thy averted looks? Now thy white arm, now thy hair, Glimpsed among the trees and brooks? Thou who hauntest, whispering, All the slopes and vales of Spring.

Cease to lure! or grant to me All thy beauty! though it pain, Slay with splendor utterly! Flash revealment on my brain! And one moment let me see All thy immortality!

THE WIND OF SPRING

The wind that breathes of columbines And celandines that crowd the rocks; That shakes the balsam of the pines With laughter from his airy locks, Stops at my city door and knocks.

He calls me far a-forest, where The twin-leaf and the blood-root bloom; And, circled by the amber air, Life sits with beauty and perfume Weaving the new web of her loom.

He calls me where the waters run Through fronding ferns where wades the hern; And, sparkling in the equal sun, Song leans above her brimming urn, And dreams the dreams that love shall learn.

The wind has summoned, and I go: To read God's meaning in each line The wildflowers write; and, walking slow, God's purpose, of which song is sign,-- The wind's great, gusty hand in mine.

THE CATBIRD

I

The tufted gold of the sassafras, And the gold of the spicewood-bush, Bewilder the ways of the forest pass, And brighten the underbrush: The white-starred drifts of the wild-plum tree, And the haw with its pearly plumes, And the redbud, misted rosily, Dazzle the woodland glooms.

II

And I hear the song of the catbird wake I' the boughs o' the gnarled wild-crab, Or there where the snows of the dogwood shake, That the silvery sunbeams stab: And it seems to me that a magic lies In the crystal sweet of its notes, That a myriad blossoms open their eyes As its strain above them floats.

III

I see the bluebell's blue unclose, And the trillium's stainless white; The birdfoot-violet's purple and rose, And the poppy, golden-bright! And I see the eyes of the bluet wink, And the heads of the white-hearts nod; And the baby mouths of the woodland-pink And sorrel salute the sod.

IV

And this, meseems, does the catbird say, As the blossoms crowd i' the sun:-- "Up, up! and out! oh, out and away! Up, up! and out, each one! Sweethearts! sweethearts! oh, sweet, sweet, sweet! Come listen and hark to me! The Spring, the Spring, with her fragrant feet, Is passing this way!--Oh, hark to the beat Of her beelike heart!--Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet! Come! open your eyes and see! See, see, see!"

A WOODLAND GRAVE

White moons may come, white moons may go-- She sleeps where early blossoms blow; Knows nothing of the leafy June, That leans above her night and noon, Crowned now with sunbeam, now with moon, Watching her roses grow.

The downy moth at twilight comes And flutters round their honeyed blooms: Long, lazy clouds, like ivory, That isle the blue lagoons of sky, Redden to molten gold and dye With flame the pine-deep glooms.

Dew, dripping from wet fern and leaf; The wind, that shakes the violet's sheaf; The slender sound of water lone, That makes a harp-string of some stone, And now a wood bird's glimmering moan, Seem whisperings there of grief.

Her garden, where the lilacs grew, Where, on old walls, old roses blew, Head-heavy with their mellow musk, Where, when the beetle's drone was husk, She lingered in the dying dusk, No more shall know that knew.

Her orchard,--where the Spring and she Stood listening to each bird and bee,-- That, from its fragrant firmament, Snowed blossoms on her as she went, (A blossom with their blossoms blent) No more her face shall see.

White moons may come, white moons may go-- She sleeps where early blossoms blow: Around her headstone many a seed Shall sow itself; and brier and weed Shall grow to hide it from men's heed, And none will care or know.

SUNSET DREAMS

The moth and beetle wing about The garden ways of other days; Above the hills, a fiery shout Of gold, the day dies slowly out, Like some wild blast a huntsman blows: And o'er the hills my Fancy goes, Following the sunset's golden call Unto a vine-hung garden wall, Where she awaits me in the gloom, Between the lily and the rose, With arms and lips of warm perfume, The dream of Love my Fancy knows.

The glowworm and the firefly glow Among the ways of bygone days; A golden shaft shot from a bow Of silver, star and moon swing low Above the hills where twilight lies: And o'er the hills my Longing flies, Following the star's far-arrowed gold, Unto a gate where, as of old, She waits amid the rose and rue, With star-bright hair and night-dark eyes, The dream, to whom my heart is true, My dream of Love that never dies.

THE OLD BYWAY

Its rotting fence one scarcely sees Through sumac and wild blackberries, Thick elder and the bramble-rose, Big ox-eyed daisies where the bees Hang droning in repose.

The little lizards lie all day Gray on its rocks of lichen-gray; And, insect-Ariels of the sun, The butterflies make bright its way, Its path where chipmunks run.

A lyric there the redbird lifts, While, twittering, the swallow drifts 'Neath wandering clouds of sleepy cream,-- In which the wind makes azure rifts,-- O'er dells where wood-doves dream.

The brown grasshoppers rasp and bound Mid weeds and briers that hedge it round; And in its grass-grown ruts,--where stirs The harmless snake,--mole-crickets sound Their faery dulcimers.

At evening, when the sad west turns To lonely night a cheek that burns, The tree-toads in the wild-plum sing; And ghosts of long-dead flowers and ferns The winds wake, whispering.

"BELOW THE SUNSET'S RANGE OF ROSE"

Below the sunset's range of rose, Below the heaven's deepening blue, Down woodways where the balsam blows, And milkweed tufts hang, gray with dew, A Jersey heifer stops and lows-- The cows come home by one, by two.

There is no star yet: but the smell Of hay and pennyroyal mix With herb aromas of the dell, Where the root-hidden cricket clicks: Among the ironweeds a bell Clangs near the rail-fenced clover-ricks.

She waits upon the slope beside The windlassed well the plum trees shade, The well curb that the goose-plums hide; Her light hand on the bucket laid, Unbonneted she waits, glad-eyed, Her gown as simple as her braid.

She sees fawn-colored backs among The sumacs now; a tossing horn Its clashing bell of copper rung: Long shadows lean upon the corn, And slow the day dies, scarlet stung, The cloud in it a rosy thorn.

Below the pleasant moon, that tips The tree tops of the hillside, fly The flitting bats; the twilight slips, In firefly spangles, twinkling by, Through which _he_ comes: Their happy lips Meet--and one star leaps in the sky.

He takes her bucket, and they speak Of married hopes while in the grass The plum drops glowing as her cheek; The patient cows look back or pass: And in the west one golden streak Burns as if God gazed through a glass.

MUSIC OF SUMMER

I

Thou sit'st among the sunny silences Of terraced hills and woodland galleries, Thou utterance of all calm melodies, Thou lutanist of Earth's most affluent lute,-- Where no false note intrudes To mar the silent music,--branch and root,-- Charming the fields ripe, orchards and deep woods, To song similitudes Of flower and seed and fruit.

II

Oft have I seen thee, in some sensuous air, Bewitch the broad wheat-acres everywhere To imitated gold of thy deep hair: The peach, by thy red lips' delicious trouble, Blown into gradual dyes Of crimson; and beheld thy magic double-- Dark-blue with fervid influence of thine eyes-- The grapes' rotundities, Bubble by purple bubble.

III

Deliberate uttered into life intense, Out of thy soul's melodious eloquence Beauty evolves its just preëminence: The lily, from some pensive-smitten chord Drawing significance Of purity, a visible hush stands: starred With splendor, from thy passionate utterance, The rose writes its romance In blushing word on word.

IV

As star by star Day harps in Evening, The inspiration of all things that sing Is in thy hands and from their touch takes wing: All brooks, all birds,--whom song can never sate,-- The leaves, the wind and rain, Green frogs and insects, singing soon and late, Thy sympathies inspire, thy heart's refrain, Whose sounds invigorate With rest life's weary brain.

V

And as the Night, like some mysterious rune, Its beauty makes emphatic with the moon, Thou lutest us no immaterial tune: But where dim whispers haunt the cane and corn, By thy still strain made strong, Earth's awful avatar,--in whom is born Thy own deep music,--labors all night long With growth, assuring Morn Assumes with onward song.

MIDSUMMER

I

The mellow smell of hollyhocks And marigolds and pinks and phlox Blends with the homely garden scents Of onions, silvering into rods; Of peppers, scarlet with their pods; And (rose of all the esculents) Of broad plebeian cabbages, Breathing content and corpulent ease.

II

The buzz of wasp and fly makes hot The spaces of the garden-plot; And from the orchard,--where the fruit Ripens and rounds, or, loosed with heat, Rolls, hornet-clung, before the feet,-- One hears the veery's golden flute, That mixes with the sleepy hum Of bees that drowsily go and come.

III

The podded musk of gourd and vine Embower a gate of roughest pine, That leads into a wood where day Sits, leaning o'er a forest pool, Watching the lilies opening cool, And dragonflies at airy play, While, dim and near, the quietness Rustles and stirs her leafy dress.

IV

Far-off a cowbell clangs awake The noon who slumbers in the brake: And now a pewee, plaintively, Whistles the day to sleep again: A rain-crow croaks a rune for rain, And from the ripest apple tree A great gold apple thuds, where, slow, The red cock curves his neck to crow.

V

Hens cluck their broods from place to place, While clinking home, with chain and trace, The cart-horse plods along the road Where afternoon sits with his dreams: Hot fragrance of hay-making streams Above him, and a high-heaped load Goes creaking by and with it, sweet, The aromatic soul of heat.

VI

"Coo-ee! coo-ee!" the evenfall Cries, and the hills repeat the call: "Coo-ee! coo-ee!" and by the log Labor unharnesses his plow, While to the barn comes cow on cow: "Coo-ee! coo-ee!"--and, with his dog, Barefooted boyhood down the lane "Coo-ees" the cattle home again.

THE RAIN-CROW

I

Can freckled August,--drowsing warm and blond Beside a wheat-shock in the white-topped mead, In her hot hair the yellow daisies wound,-- O bird of rain, lend aught but sleepy heed To thee? when no plumed weed, no feathered seed Blows by her; and no ripple breaks the pond, That gleams like flint within its rim of grasses, Through which the dragonfly forever passes Like splintered diamond.

II

Drouth weights the trees; and from the farmhouse eaves The locust, pulse-beat of the summer day, Throbs; and the lane, that shambles under leaves Limp with the heat--a league of rutty way-- Is lost in dust; and sultry scents of hay Breathe from the panting meadows heaped with sheaves-- Now, now, O bird, what hint is there of rain, In thirsty meadow or on burning plain, That thy keen eye perceives?

III

But thou art right. Thou prophesiest true. For hardly hast thou ceased thy forecasting, When, up the western fierceness of scorched blue, Great water-carrier winds their buckets bring Brimming with freshness. How their dippers ring And flash and rumble! lavishing large dew On corn and forest land, that, streaming wet, Their hilly backs against the downpour set, Like giants, loom in view.

IV

The butterfly, safe under leaf and flower, Has found a roof, knowing how true thou art; The bumblebee, within the last half-hour, Has ceased to hug the honey to its heart; While in the barnyard, under shed and cart, Brood-hens have housed.--But I, who scorned thy power, Barometer of birds,--like August there,-- Beneath a beech, dripping from foot to hair, Like some drenched truant, cower.

FIELD AND FOREST CALL

I

There is a field, that leans upon two hills, Foamed o'er of flowers and twinkling with clear rills; That in its girdle of wild acres bears The anodyne of rest that cures all cares; Wherein soft wind and sun and sound are blent With fragrance--as in some old instrument Sweet chords;--calm things, that Nature's magic spell Distills from Heaven's azure crucible, And pours on Earth to make the sick mind well. There lies the path, they say-- Come away! come away!

II

There is a forest, lying 'twixt two streams, Sung through of birds and haunted of dim dreams; That in its league-long hand of trunk and leaf Lifts a green wand that charms away all grief; Wrought of quaint silence and the stealth of things, Vague, whispering' touches, gleams and twitterings, Dews and cool shadows--that the mystic soul Of Nature permeates with suave control, And waves o'er Earth to make the sad heart whole. There lies the road, they say-- Come away! come away!

OLD HOMES

Old homes among the hills! I love their gardens; Their old rock fences, that our day inherits; Their doors, round which the great trees stand like wardens; Their paths, down which the shadows march like spirits; Broad doors and paths that reach bird-haunted gardens.

I see them gray among their ancient acres, Severe of front, their gables lichen-sprinkled,-- Like gentle-hearted, solitary Quakers, Grave and religious, with kind faces wrinkled,-- Serene among their memory-hallowed acres.

Their gardens, banked with roses and with lilies-- Those sweet aristocrats of all the flowers-- Where Springtime mints her gold in daffodillies, And Autumn coins her marigolds in showers, And all the hours are toilless as the lilies.

I love their orchards where the gay woodpecker Flits, flashing o'er you, like a wingéd jewel; Their woods, whose floors of moss the squirrels checker With half-hulled nuts; and where, in cool renewal, The wild brooks laugh, and raps the red woodpecker.

Old homes! old hearts! Upon my soul forever Their peace and gladness lie like tears and laughter; Like love they touch me, through the years that sever, With simple faith; like friendship, draw me after The dreamy patience that is theirs forever.

THE FOREST WAY

I

I climbed a forest path and found A dim cave in the dripping ground, Where dwelt the spirit of cool sound, Who wrought with crystal triangles, And hollowed foam of rippled bells, A music of mysterious spells.

II

Where Sleep her bubble-jewels spilled Of dreams; and Silence twilight-filled Her emerald buckets, star-instilled, With liquid whispers of lost springs, And mossy tread of woodland things, And drip of dew that greenly clings.

III

Here by those servitors of Sound, Warders of that enchanted ground, My soul and sense were seized and bound, And, in a dungeon deep of trees Entranced, were laid at lazy ease, The charge of woodland mysteries.

IV

The minions of Prince Drowsihead, The wood-perfumes, with sleepy tread, Tiptoed around my ferny bed: And far away I heard report Of one who dimly rode to Court, The Faery Princess, Eve-Amort.

V

Her herald winds sang as they passed; And there her beauty stood at last, With wild gold locks, a band held fast, Above blue eyes, as clear as spar; While from a curved and azure jar She poured the white moon and a star.

SUNSET AND STORM

Deep with divine tautology, The sunset's mighty mystery Again has traced the scroll-like west With hieroglyphs of burning gold: Forever new, forever old, Its miracle is manifest.

Time lays the scroll away. And now Above the hills a giant brow Of cloud Night lifts; and from his arm, Barbaric black, upon the world, With thunder, wind and fire, is hurled His awful argument of storm.

What part, O man, is yours in such? Whose awe and wonder are in touch With Nature,--speaking rapture to Your soul,--yet leaving in your reach No human word of thought or speech Commensurate with the thing you view.

QUIET LANES

From the lyrical eclogue "One Day and Another"