Chapter 4
Now rests the season in forgetfulness, Careless in beauty of maturity; The ripened roses round brown temples, she Fulfills completion in a dreamy guess. Now Time grants night the more and day the less: The gray decides; and brown Dim golds and drabs in dulling green express Themselves and redden as the year goes down. Sadder the fields where, thrusting hoary high Their tasseled heads, the Lear-like corn-stocks die, And, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie.-- Deepening with tenderness, Sadder the blue of hills that lounge along The lonesome west; sadder the song Of the wild redbird in the leafage yellow.-- Deeper and dreamier, aye! Than woods or waters, leans the languid sky Above lone orchards where the cider press Drips and the russets mellow. Nature grows liberal: from the beechen leaves The beech-nuts' burrs their little purses thrust, Plump with the copper of the nuts that rust; Above the grass the spendthrift spider weaves A web of silver for which dawn designs Thrice twenty rows of pearls: beneath the oak, That rolls old roots in many gnarly lines,-- The polished acorns, from their saucers broke, Strew oval agates.--On sonorous pines The far wind organs; but the forest near Is silent; and the blue-white smoke Of burning brush, beyond that field of hay, Hangs like a pillar in the atmosphere: But now it shakes--it breaks, and all the vines And tree tops tremble; see! the wind is here! Billowing and boisterous; and the smiling day Rejoices in its clamor. Earth and sky Resound with glory of its majesty, Impetuous splendor of its rushing by.-- But on those heights the woodland dark is still, Expectant of its coming.... Far away Each anxious tree upon each waiting hill Tingles anticipation, as in gray Surmise of rapture. Now the first gusts play, Like laughter low, about their rippling spines; And now the wildwood, one exultant sway, Shouts--and the light at each tumultuous pause, The light that glooms and shines, Seems hands in wild applause.
How glows that garden!--Though the white mists keep The vagabonding flowers reminded of Decay that comes to slay in open love, When the full moon hangs cold and night is deep; Unheeding still their cardinal colors leap Gay in the crescent of the blade of death,-- Spaced innocents whom he prepares to reap,-- Staying his scythe a breath To mark their beauty ere, with one last sweep, He lays them dead and turns away to weep.-- Let me admire,-- Before the sickle of the coming cold Shall mow them down,--their beauties manifold: How like to spurts of fire That scarlet salvia lifts its blooms, which heap With flame the sunlight. And, as sparkles creep Through charring vellum, up that window's screen The cypress dots with crimson all its green, The haunt of many bees. Cascading dark old porch-built lattices, The nightshade bleeds with berries; drops of blood Hanging in clusters 'mid the blue monk's-hood.
There is a garden old, Where bright-hued clumps of zinnias unfold Their formal flowers; where the marigold Lifts a pinched shred of orange sunset caught And elfed in petals; the nasturtium, Deep, pungent-leaved and acrid of perfume, Hangs up a goblin bonnet, pixy-brought From Gnomeland. There, predominant red, And arrogant, the dahlia lifts its head, Beside the balsam's rose-stained horns of honey, Lost in the murmuring, sunny Dry wildness of the weedy flower bed; Where crickets and the weed-bugs, noon and night, Shrill dirges for the flowers that soon shall die, And flowers already dead.-- I seem to hear the passing Summer sigh: A voice, that seems to weep,-- "Too soon, too soon the Beautiful passes by! And soon, among these bowers Will dripping Autumn mourn with all her flowers"--
If I, perchance, might peep Beneath those leaves of podded hollyhocks, That the bland wind with odorous murmurs rocks, I might behold her,--white And weary,--Summer, 'mid her flowers asleep, Her drowsy flowers asleep, The withered poppies knotted in her locks.
ONE WHO LOVED NATURE
I
He was not learned in any art; But Nature led him by the hand; And spoke her language to his heart So he could hear and understand: He loved her simply as a child; And in his love forgot the heat Of conflict, and sat reconciled In patience of defeat.
II
Before me now I see him rise-- A face, that seventy years had snowed With winter, where the kind blue eyes Like hospitable fires glowed: A small gray man whose heart was large, And big with knowledge learned of need; A heart, the hard world made its targe, That never ceased to bleed.
III
He knew all Nature. Yea, he knew What virtue lay within each flower, What tonic in the dawn and dew, And in each root what magic power: What in the wild witch-hazel tree Reversed its time of blossoming, And clothed its branches goldenly In fall instead of spring.
IV
He knew what made the firefly glow And pulse with crystal gold and flame; And whence the bloodroot got its snow, And how the bramble's perfume came: He understood the water's word And grasshopper's and cricket's chirr; And of the music of each bird He was interpreter.
V
He kept no calendar of days, But knew the seasons by the flowers; And he could tell you by the rays Of sun or stars the very hours. He probed the inner mysteries Of light, and knew the chemic change That colors flowers, and what is Their fragrance wild and strange.
VI
If some old oak had power of speech, It could not speak more wildwood lore, Nor in experience further reach, Than he who was a tree at core. Nature was all his heritage, And seemed to fill his every need; Her features were his book, whose page He never tired to read.
VII
He read her secrets that no man Has ever read and never will, And put to scorn the charlatan Who botanizes of her still. He kept his knowledge sweet and clean, And questioned not of why and what; And never drew a line between What's known and what is not.
VIII
He was most gentle, good, and wise; A simpler heart earth never saw: His soul looked softly from his eyes, And in his speech were love and awe.
Yet Nature in the end denied The thing he had not asked for--fame! Unknown, in poverty he died, And men forget his name.
GARDEN GOSSIP
Thin, chisel-fine a cricket chipped The crystal silence into sound; And where the branches dreamed and dripped A grasshopper its dagger stripped And on the humming darkness ground.
A bat, against the gibbous moon, Danced, implike, with its lone delight; The glowworm scrawled a golden rune Upon the dark; and, emerald-strewn, The firefly hung with lamps the night.
The flowers said their beads in prayer, Dew-syllables of sighed perfume; Or talked of two, soft-standing there, One like a gladiole, straight and fair, And one like some rich poppy-bloom.
The mignonette and feverfew Laid their pale brows together:--"See!" One whispered: "Did their step thrill through Your roots?"--"Like rain."--"I touched the two And a new bud was born in me."
One rose said to another:--"Whose Is this dim music? song, that parts My crimson petals like the dews?" "My blossom trembles with sweet news-- It is the love of two young hearts."
ASSUMPTION
I
A mile of moonlight and the whispering wood: A mile of shadow and the odorous lane: One large, white star above the solitude, Like one sweet wish: and, laughter after pain, Wild-roses wistful in a web of rain.
II
No star, no rose, to lesson him and lead; No woodsman compass of the skies and rocks,-- Tattooed of stars and lichens,--doth love need To guide him where, among the hollyhocks, A blur of moonlight, gleam his sweetheart's locks.
III
We name it beauty--that permitted part, The love-elected apotheosis Of Nature, which the god within the heart, Just touching, makes immortal, but by this-- A star, a rose, the memory of a kiss.
SENORITA
An agate-black, your roguish eyes Claim no proud lineage of the skies, No starry blue; but of good earth The reckless witchery and mirth.
Looped in your raven hair's repose, A hot aroma, one red rose Dies; envious of that loveliness, By being near which its is less.
Twin sea shells, hung with pearls, your ears, Whose slender rosiness appears Part of the pearls; whose pallid fire Binds the attention these inspire.
One slim hand crumples up the lace About your bosom's swelling grace; A ruby at your samite throat Lends the required color note.
The moon bears through the violet night A pearly urn of chaliced light; And from your dark-railed balcony You stoop and wave your fan at me.
O'er orange orchards and the rose Vague, odorous lips the south wind blows, Peopling the night with whispers of Romance and palely passionate love.
The heaven of your balcony Smiles down two stars, that say to me More peril than Angelica Wrought with her beauty in Cathay.
Oh, stoop to me! and, speaking, reach My soul like song that learned sweet speech From some dim instrument--who knows?-- Or flower, a dulcimer or rose.
OVERSEAS
_Non numero horas nisi serenas_
When Fall drowns morns in mist, it seems In soul I am a part of it; A portion of its humid beams, A form of fog, I seem to flit From dreams to dreams....
An old château sleeps 'mid the hills Of France: an avenue of sorbs Conceals it: drifts of daffodils Bloom by a 'scutcheoned gate with barbs Like iron bills.
I pass the gate unquestioned; yet, I feel, announced. Broad holm-oaks make Dark pools of restless violet. Between high bramble banks a lake,-- As in a net
The tangled scales twist silver,--shines.... Gray, mossy turrets swell above A sea of leaves. And where the pines Shade ivied walls, there lies my love, My heart divines.
I know her window, slimly seen From distant lanes with hawthorn hedged: Her garden, with the nectarine Espaliered, and the peach tree, wedged 'Twixt walls of green.
Cool-babbling a fountain falls From gryphons' mouths in porphyry; Carp haunt its waters; and white balls Of lilies dip it when the bee Creeps in and drawls.
And butterflies--each with a face Of faery on its wings--that seem Beheaded pansies, softly chase Each other down the gloom and gleam Trees interspace.
And roses! roses, soft as vair, Round sylvan statues and the old Stone dial--Pompadours, that wear Their royalty of purple and gold With wanton air....
Her scarf, her lute, whose ribbons breathe The perfume of her touch; her gloves, Modeling the daintiness they sheathe; Her fan, a Watteau, gay with loves, Lie there beneath
A bank of eglantine, that heaps A rose-strewn shadow.--Naïve-eyed, With lips as suave as they, she sleeps; The romance by her, open wide, O'er which she weeps.
PROBLEMS
Man's are the learnings of his books-- What is all knowledge that he knows Beside the wit of winding brooks, The wisdom of the summer rose!
How soil distills the scent in flowers Baffles his science: heaven-dyed, How, from the palette of His hours, God gives them colors, hath defied.
What dream of heaven begets the light? Or, ere the stars beat burning tunes, Stains all the hollow edge of night With glory as of molten moons?
Who is it answers what is birth Or death, that nothing may retard? Or what is love, that seems of Earth, Yet wears God's own divine regard?
TO A WINDFLOWER
I
Teach me the secret of thy loveliness, That, being made wise, I may aspire to be As beautiful in thought, and so express Immortal truths to Earth's mortality; Though to my soul ability be less Than 'tis to thee, O sweet anemone.
II
Teach me the secret of thy innocence, That in simplicity I may grow wise; Asking of Art no other recompense Than the approval of her own just eyes; So may I rise to some fair eminence, Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies.
III
Teach me these things; through whose high knowledge, I,-- When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins, And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie In that vast house, common to serfs and thanes,-- I shall not die, I shall not utterly die, For beauty born of beauty--_that_ remains.
VOYAGERS
Where are they, that song and tale Tell of? lands our childhood knew? Sea-locked Faerylands that trail Morning summits, dim with dew, Crimson o'er a crimson sail.
Where in dreams we entered on Wonders eyes have never seen: Whither often we have gone, Sailing a dream-brigantine On from voyaging dawn to dawn.
Leons seeking lands of song; Fabled fountains pouring spray; Where our anchors dropped among Corals of some tropic bay, With its swarthy native throng.
Shoulder ax and arquebus!-- We may find it!--past yon range Of sierras, vaporous, Rich with gold and wild and strange That lost region dear to us.
Yet, behold, although our zeal Darien summits may subdue, Our Balboa eyes reveal But a vaster sea come to-- New endeavor for our keel.
Yet! who sails with face set hard Westward,--while behind him lies Unfaith,--where his dreams keep guard Round it, in the sunset skies, He may reach it--afterward.
THE SPELL
_"We have the receipt of fern seed: we walk invisible."_ --HENRY IV
And we have met but twice or thrice!-- Three times enough to make me love!-- I praised your hair once; then your glove; Your eyes; your gown;--you were like ice; And yet this might suffice, my love, And yet this might suffice.
St. John hath told me what to do: To search and find the ferns that grow The fern seed that the faeries know; Then sprinkle fern seed in my shoe, And haunt the steps of you, my dear, And haunt the steps of you.
You'll see the poppy pods dip here; The blow-ball of the thistle slip, And no wind breathing--but my lip Next to your anxious cheek and ear, To tell you I am near, my love, To tell you I am near.
On wood-ways I shall tread your gown-- You'll know it is no brier!--then I'll whisper words of love again, And smile to see your quick face frown: And then I'll kiss it down, my dear, And then I'll kiss it down.
And when at home you read or knit,-- Who'll know it was my hands that blotted The page?--or all your needles knotted? When in your rage you cry a bit: And loud I laugh at it, my love, And loud I laugh at it.
The secrets that you say in prayer Right so I'll hear: and, when you sing, The name you speak; and whispering I'll bend and kiss your mouth and hair, And tell you I am there, my dear, And tell you I am there.
Would it were true what people say!-- Would I _could_ find that elfin seed! Then should I win your love, indeed, By being near you night and day-- There is no other way, my love, There is no other way.
Meantime the truth in this is said: It is my soul that follows you; It needs no fern seed in the shoe,-- While in the heart love pulses red, To win you and to wed, my dear, To win you and to wed.
UNCERTAINTY
_"'He cometh not,' she said."_--MARIANA
It will not be to-day and yet I think and dream it will; and let The slow uncertainty devise So many sweet excuses, met With the old doubt in hope's disguise.
The panes were sweated with the dawn; Yet through their dimness, shriveled drawn, The aigret of one princess-feather, One monk's-hood tuft with oilets wan, I glimpsed, dead in the slaying weather.
This morning, when my window's chintz I drew, how gray the day was!--Since I saw him, yea, all days are gray!-- I gazed out on my dripping quince, Defruited, gnarled; then turned away
To weep, but did not weep: but felt A colder anguish than did melt About the tearful-visaged year!-- Then flung the lattice wide, and smelt The autumn sorrow: Rotting near
The rain-drenched sunflowers bent and bleached, Up which the frost-nipped gourd-vines reached And morning-glories, seeded o'er With ashen aiglets; whence beseeched One last bloom, frozen to the core.
The podded hollyhocks,--that Fall Had stripped of finery,--by the wall Rustled their tatters; dripped and dripped, The fog thick on them: near them, all The tarnished, haglike zinnias tipped.
I felt the death and loved it: yea, To have it nearer, sought the gray, Chill, fading garth. Yet could not weep, But wandered in an aimless way, And sighed with weariness for sleep.
Mine were the fog, the frosty stalks; The weak lights on the leafy walks; The shadows shivering with the cold; The breaking heart; the lonely talks; The last, dim, ruined marigold.
But when to-night the moon swings low-- A great marsh-marigold of glow-- And all my garden with the sea Moans, then, through moon and mist, I know My love will come to comfort me.
IN THE WOOD
The waterfall, deep in the wood, Talked drowsily with solitude, A soft, insistent sound of foam, That filled with sleep the forest's dome, Where, like some dream of dusk, she stood Accentuating solitude.
The crickets' tinkling chips of sound Strewed dim the twilight-twinkling ground; A whippoorwill began to cry, And glimmering through the sober sky A bat went on its drunken round, Its shadow following on the ground.
Then from a bush, an elder-copse, That spiced the dark with musky tops, What seemed, at first, a shadow came And took her hand and spoke her name, And kissed her where, in starry drops, The dew orbed on the elder-tops.
The glaucous glow of fireflies Flickered the dusk; and foxlike eyes Peered from the shadows; and the hush Murmured a word of wind and rush Of fluttering waters, fragrant sighs, And dreams unseen of mortal eyes.
The beetle flung its burr of sound Against the hush and clung there, wound In night's deep mane: then, in a tree, A grig began deliberately To file the stillness: all around A wire of shrillness seemed unwound.
I looked for those two lovers there; His ardent eyes, her passionate hair. The moon looked down, slow-climbing wan Heaven's slope of azure: they were gone: But where they'd passed I heard the air Sigh, faint with sweetness of her hair.
SINCE THEN
I found myself among the trees What time the reapers ceased to reap; And in the sunflower-blooms the bees Huddled brown heads and went to sleep, Rocked by the balsam-breathing breeze.
I saw the red fox leave his lair, A shaggy shadow, on the knoll; And tunneling his thoroughfare Beneath the soil, I watched the mole-- Stealth's own self could not take more care.
I heard the death-moth tick and stir, Slow-honeycombing through the bark; I heard the cricket's drowsy chirr, And one lone beetle burr the dark-- The sleeping woodland seemed to purr.
And then the moon rose: and one white Low bough of blossoms--grown almost Where, ere you died, 'twas our delight To meet,--dear heart!--I thought your ghost.... The wood is haunted since that night.
DUSK IN THE WOODS
Three miles of trees it is: and I Came through the woods that waited, dumb, For the cool summer dusk to come; And lingered there to watch the sky Up which the gradual splendor clomb.
A tree-toad quavered in a tree; And then a sudden whippoorwill Called overhead, so wildly shrill The sleeping wood, it seemed to me, Cried out and then again was still.
Then through dark boughs its stealthy flight An owl took; and, at drowsy strife, The cricket tuned its faery fife; And like a ghost-flower, silent white, The wood-moth glimmered into life.
And in the dead wood everywhere The insects ticked, or bored below The rotted bark; and, glow on glow, The lambent fireflies here and there Lit up their jack-o'-lantern show.
I heard a vesper-sparrow sing, Withdrawn, it seemed, into the far Slow sunset's tranquil cinnabar; The crimson, softly smoldering Behind the trees, with its one star.
A dog barked: and down ways that gleamed, Through dew and clover, faint the noise Of cowbells moved. And then a voice, That sang a-milking, so it seemed, Made glad my heart as some glad boy's.
And then the lane: and, full in view, A farmhouse with its rose-grown gate, And honeysuckle paths, await For night, the moon, and love and you-- These are the things that made me late.
PATHS
I
What words of mine can tell the spell Of garden ways I know so well?-- The path that takes me in the spring Past quince-trees where the bluebirds sing, And peonies are blossoming, Unto a porch, wistaria-hung, Around whose steps May-lilies blow, A fair girl reaches down among, Her arm more white than their sweet snow.
II
What words of mine can tell the spell Of garden ways I know so well?-- Another path that leads me, when The summer time is here again, Past hollyhocks that shame the west When the red sun has sunk to rest; To roses bowering a nest, A lattice, 'neath which mignonette And deep geraniums surge and sough, Where, in the twilight, starless yet, A fair girl's eyes are stars enough.
III
What words of mine can tell the spell Of garden ways I know so well?-- A path that takes me, when the days Of autumn wrap the hills in haze, Beneath the pippin-pelting tree, 'Mid flitting butterfly and bee; Unto a door where, fiery, The creeper climbs; and, garnet-hued, The cock's-comb and the dahlia flare, And in the door, where shades intrude, Gleams bright a fair girl's sunbeam hair.
IV
What words of mine can tell the spell Of garden ways I know so well?-- A path that brings me through the frost Of winter, when the moon is tossed In clouds; beneath great cedars, weak With shaggy snow; past shrubs blown bleak With shivering leaves; to eaves that leak The tattered ice, whereunder is A fire-flickering window-space; And in the light, with lips to kiss, A fair girl's welcome-smiling face.
THE QUEST
I
First I asked the honeybee, Busy in the balmy bowers; Saying, "Sweetheart, tell it me: Have you seen her, honeybee? She is cousin to the flowers-- All the sweetness of the south In her wild-rose face and mouth." But the bee passed silently.
II
Then I asked the forest bird, Warbling by the woodland waters; Saying, "Dearest, have you heard? Have you heard her, forest bird? She is one of music's daughters-- Never song so sweet by half As the music of her laugh." But the bird said not a word.
III
Next I asked the evening sky, Hanging out its lamps of fire; Saying, "Loved one, passed she by? Tell me, tell me, evening sky! She, the star of my desire-- Sister whom the Pleiads lost, And my soul's high pentecost." But the sky made no reply.
IV
Where is she? ah, where is she? She to whom both love and duty Bind me, yea, immortally.-- Where is she? ah, where is she? Symbol of the Earth-Soul's beauty. I have lost her. Help my heart Find her! her, who is a part Of the pagan soul of me.
THE GARDEN OF DREAMS
Not while I live may I forget That garden which my spirit trod! Where dreams were flowers, wild and wet, And beautiful as God.
Not while I breathe, awake, adream, Shall live again for me those hours, When, in its mystery and gleam, I met her 'mid the flowers.
Eyes, talismanic heliotrope, Beneath mesmeric lashes, where The sorceries of love and hope Had made a shining lair.