Chapter 2

There, from its entrance, lost in matted vines,-- Where in the valley foams a water-fall,--- Is glimpsed a ruined mill's remaining wall; Here, by the road, the oxeye daisy mines Hot brass and bronze; the trumpet-trailer shines Red as the plumage of the cardinal. Faint from the forest comes the rain-crow's call Where dusty Summer dreams among the pines. This is the spot where Spring writes wildflower verses In primrose pink, while, drowsing o'er his reins, The ploughman, all unnoticing, plods along: And where the Autumn opens weedy purses Of sleepy silver, while the corn-heaped wains Rumble the bridge like some deep throat of song.

THE HILLSIDE GRAVE

Ten-hundred deep the drifted daisies break Here at the hill's foot; on its top, the wheat Hangs meagre-bearded; and, in vague retreat, The wisp-like blooms of the moth-mulleins shake. And where the wild-pink drops a crimson flake, And morning-glories, like young lips, make sweet The shaded hush, low in the honeyed heat, The wild-bees hum; as if afraid to wake One sleeping there; with no white stone to tell The story of existence; but the stem Of one wild-rose, towering o'er brier and weed, Where all the day the wild-birds requiem; Within whose shade the timid violets spell An epitaph, only the stars can read.

SIMULACRA

Dark in the west the sunset's somber wrack Unrolled vast walls the rams of war had split, Along whose battlements the battle lit Tempestuous beacons; and, with gates hurled back, A mighty city, red with ruin and sack, Through burning breaches, crumbling bit by bit, Showed where the God of Slaughter seemed to sit With conflagration glaring at each crack. Who knows? perhaps as sleep unto us makes Our dreams as real as our waking seems With recollections time can not destroy, So in the mind of Nature now awakes Haply some wilder memory, and she dreams The stormy story of the fall of Troy.

BEFORE THE END

How does the Autumn in her mind conclude The tragic masque her frosty pencil writes, Broad on the pages of the days and nights, In burning lines of orchard, wold, and wood? What lonelier forms--that at the year's door stood At spectral wait--with wildly wasted lights Shall enter? and with melancholy rites Inaugurate their sadder sisterhood?-- Sorrow, who lifts a signal hand, and slow The green leaf fevers, falling ere it dies; Regret, whose pale lips summon, and gaunt Woe Wakes the wild-wind harps with sonorous sighs; And Sleep, who sits with poppied eyes and sees The earth and sky grow dream-accessories.

WINTER

The flute, whence Autumn's misty finger-tips Drew music--ripening the pinched kernels in The burly chestnut and the chinquapin, Red-rounding-out the oval haws and hips,-- Now Winter crushes to his stormy lips And surly songs whistle around his chin: Now the wild days and wilder nights begin When, at the eaves, the crooked icicle drips. Thy songs, O Autumn, are not lost so soon! Still dwells a memory in thy hollow flute, Which, unto Winter's masculine airs, doth give Thy own creative qualities of tune, By which we see each bough bend white with fruit, Each bush with bloom, in snow commemorative.

HOAR-FROST

The frail eidolons of all blossoms Spring, Year after year, about the forest tossed, The magic touch of the enchanter, Frost, Back from the Heaven of the Flow'rs doth bring; Each branch and bush in silence visiting With phantom beauty of its blooms long lost: Each dead weed bends, white-haunted of its ghost, Each dead flower stands ghostly with blossoming. This is the wonder-legend Nature tells To the gray moon and mist a winter's night; The fairy-tale, which her weird fancy 'spells With all the glamour of her soul's delight: Before the summoning sorcery of her eyes Making her spirit's dream materialize.

THE WINTER MOON

Deep in the dell I watched her as she rose, A face of icy fire, o'er the hills; With snow-sad eyes to freeze the forest rills, And snow-sad feet to bleach the meadow snows: Pale as some young witch who, a-listening, goes To her first meeting with the Fiend; whose fears Fix demon eyes behind each bush she nears; Stops, yet must on, fearful of following foes. And so I chased her, startled in the wood, Like a discovered Oread, who flies The Faun who found her sleeping, each nude limb Glittering betrayal through the solitude; Till in a frosty cloud I saw her swim, Like a drowned face, a blur beneath the ice.

IN SUMMER

When in dry hollows, hilled with hay, The vesper-sparrow sings afar; And, golden gray, dusk dies away Beneath the amber evening-star: There, where a warm and shadowy arm The woodland lays around the farm, To meet you where we kissed, dear heart, To kiss you at the tryst, dear heart, To kiss you at the tryst!

When clover fields smell cool with dew, And crickets cry, and roads are still; And faint and few the fire-flies strew The dark where calls the whippoorwill; There, in the lane, where sweet again The petals of the wild-rose rain, To stroll with head to head, dear heart, And say the words oft said, dear heart, And say the words oft said!

RAIN AND WIND

I hear the hoofs of horses Galloping over the hill, Galloping on and galloping on, When all the night is shrill With wind and rain that beats the pane-- And my soul with awe is still.

For every dripping window Their headlong rush makes bound, Galloping up, and galloping by, Then back again and around, Till the gusty roofs ring with their hoofs, And the draughty cellars sound.

And then I hear black horsemen Hallooing in the night; Hallooing and hallooing, They ride o'er vale and height, And the branches snap and the shutters clap With the fury of their flight.

Then at each door a horseman,-- With burly bearded lip Hallooing through the keyhole,-- Pauses with cloak a-drip; And the door-knob shakes and the panel quakes 'Neath the anger of his whip.

All night I hear their gallop, And their wild halloo's alarm; The tree-tops sound and vanes go round In forest and on farm; But never a hair of a thing is there-- Only the wind and storm.

UNDER ARCTURUS

I.

"I belt the morn with ribboned mist; With baldricked blue I gird the noon, And dusk with purple, crimson-kissed, White-buckled with the hunter's moon.

"These follow me," the season says: "Mine is the frost-pale hand that packs Their scrips, and speeds them on their ways, With gipsy gold that weighs their backs."

II.

A daybreak horn the Autumn blows, As with a sun-tanned band he parts Wet boughs whereon the berry glows; And at his feet the red-fox starts.

The leafy leash that holds his hounds Is loosed; and all the noonday hush Is startled; and the hillside sounds Behind the fox's bounding brush.

When red dusk makes the western sky A fire-lit window through the firs, He stoops to see the red-fox die Among the chestnut's broken burs.

Then fanfaree and fanfaree, Down vistas of the afterglow His bugle rings from tree to tree, While all the world grows hushed below.

III.

Like some black host the shadows fall, And darkness camps among the trees; Each wildwood road, a Goblin Hall, Grows populous with mysteries.

Night comes with brows of ragged storm, And limbs of writhen cloud and mist; The rain-wind hangs upon her arm Like some wild girl that will be kissed.

By her gaunt hand the leaves are shed Like nightmares an enchantress herds; And, like a witch who calls the dead, The hill-stream whirls with foaming words.

Then all is sudden silence and Dark fear--like his who can not see, Yet hears, aye in a haunted land, Death rattling on a gallow's tree.

IV.

The days approach again; the days, Whose mantles stream, whose sandals drag; When in the haze by puddled ways Each gnarled thorn seems a crookéd hag.

When rotting orchards reek with rain; And woodlands crumble, leaf and log; And in the drizzling yard again The gourd is tagged with points of fog.

Oh, let me seat my soul among Your melancholy moods! and touch Your thoughts' sweet sorrow without tongue, Whose silence says too much, too much!

OCTOBER

Long hosts of sunlight, and the bright wind blows A tourney trumpet on the listed hill: Past is the splendor of the royal rose And duchess daffodil.

Crowned queen of beauty, in the garden's space, Strong daughter of a bitter race and bold, A ragged beggar with a lovely face, Reigns the sad marigold.

And I have sought June's butterfly for days, To find it--like a coreopsis bloom-- Amber and seal, rain-murdered 'neath the blaze Of this sunflower's plume.

Here basks the bee; and there, sky-voyaging wings Dare God's blue gulfs of heaven; the last song, The red-bird flings me as adieu, still rings Upon yon pear-tree's prong.

No angry sunset brims with rosier red The bowl of heaven than the days, indeed, Pour in each blossom of this salvia-bed, Where each leaf seems to bleed.

And where the wood-gnats dance, a tiny mist, Above the efforts of the weedy stream, The girl, October, tired of the tryst, Dreams a diviner dream.

One foot just dipping the caressing wave, One knee at languid angle; locks that drown Hands nut-stained; hazel-eyed, she lies, and grave, Watching the leaves drift down.

BARE BOUGHS

O heart, that beat the bird's blithe blood, The blithe bird's message that pursued, Now song is dead as last year's bud, What dost thou in the wood?

O soul, that kept the brook's glad flow, The glad brook's word to sun and moon, What dost thou here where song lies low As all the dreams of June?

Where once was heard a voice of song, The hautboys of the mad winds sing; Where once a music flowed along, The rain's wild bugles ring.

The weedy water frets and ails, And moans in many a sunless fall; And, o'er the melancholy, trails The black crow's eldritch call.

Unhappy brook! O withered wood! O days, whom death makes comrades of! Where are the birds that thrilled the blood When life struck hands with love?

A song, one soared against the blue; A song, one bubbled in the leaves; A song, one threw where orchards grew All appled to the eaves.

But now the birds are flown or dead; And sky and earth are bleak and gray; The wild winds sob i' the boughs instead, The wild leaves sigh i' the way.

A THRENODY

I.

The rainy smell of a ferny dell, Whose shadow no sunray flaws, When Autumn sits in the wayside weeds Telling her beads Of haws.

II.

The phantom mist, that is moonbeam-kissed, On hills where the trees are thinned, When Autumn leans at the oak-root's scarp, Playing a harp Of wind.

III.

The crickets' chirr 'neath brier and burr, By leaf-strewn pools and streams, When Autumn stands 'mid the dropping nuts, With the book, she shuts, Of dreams.

IV.

The gray "alas" of the days that pass, And the hope that says "adieu," A parting sorrow, a shriveled flower, And one ghost's hour With you.

SNOW

The moon, like a round device On a shadowy shield of war, Hangs white in a heaven of ice With a solitary star.

The wind is sunk to a sigh, And the waters are stern with frost; And gray, in the eastern sky, The last snow-cloud is lost.

White fields, that are winter-starved, Black woods, that are winter-fraught, Cold, harsh as a face death-carved With the iron of some black thought.

VAGABONDS

Your heart's a-tune with April and mine a-tune with June, So let us go a-roving beneath the summer moon: Oh, was it in the sunlight, or was it in the rain, We met among the blossoms within the locust lane? All that I can remember's the bird that sang aboon, And with its music in our hearts we'll rove beneath the moon.

A love-word of the wind, dear, of which we'll read the rune, While we still go a-roving beneath the summer moon: A love-kiss of the water we'll often stop to hear-- The echoed words and kisses of our own love, my dear: And all our path shall blossom with wild-rose sweets that swoon, And with their fragrance in our hearts we'll rove beneath the moon.

It will not be forever, yet merry goes the tune While we still go a-roving beneath the summer moon: A cabin, in the clearing, of flickering firelight When old-time lanes we strolled in the winter snows make white: Where we can nod together above the logs and croon The songs we sang when roving beneath the summer moon.

AN OLD SONG

It's Oh, for the hills, where the wind's some one With a vagabond foot that follows! And a cheer-up hand that he claps upon Your arm with the hearty words, "Come on! We'll soon be out of the hollows, My heart! We'll soon be out of the hollows!"

It's Oh, for the songs, where the hope's some one With a renegade foot that doubles! And a kindly look that he turns upon Your face with the friendly laugh, "Come on! We'll soon be out of the troubles, My heart! We'll soon be out of the troubles!"

A ROSE O' THE HILLS

The hills look down on wood and stream, On orchard-land and farm; And o'er the hills the azure-gray Of heaven bends the livelong day With thoughts of calm and storm.

On wood and stream the hills look down, On farm and orchard-land; And o'er the hills she came to me Through wildrose-brake and blackberry, The hill wind hand in hand.

The hills look down on home and field, On wood and winding stream; And o'er the hills she came along, Upon her lips a woodland song, And in her eyes, a dream.

On home and field the hills look down, On stream and vistaed wood; And breast-deep, with disordered hair, Fair in the wildrose tangle there, A sudden space she stood.

O hills, that look on rock and road, On grove and harvest-field, To whom God giveth rest and peace, And slumber, that is kin to these, And visions unrevealed!

O hills, that look on road and rock, On field and fruited grove, What now is mine of peace and rest In you! since entered at my breast God's sweet unrest of love!

DIRGE

What shall her silence keep Under the sun? Here, where the willows weep And waters run; Here, where she lies asleep, And all is done.

Lights, when the tree-top swings; Scents that are sown; Sounds of the wood-bird's wings; And the bee's drone: These be her comfortings Under the stone.

What shall watch o'er her here When day is fled? Here, when the night is near And skies are red; Here, where she lieth dear And young and dead.

Shadows, and winds that spill Dew; and the tune Of the wild whippoorwill; And the white moon; These be the watchers still Over her stone.

REST

Under the brindled beech, Deep in the mottled shade, Where the rocks hang in reach Flower and ferny blade, Let him be laid.

Here will the brooks, that rove Under the mossy trees, Grave with the music of Underworld melodies, Lap him in peace.

Here will the winds, that blow Out of the haunted west, Gold with the dreams that glow There on the heaven's breast, Lull him to rest.

Here will the stars and moon, Silent and far and deep, Old with the mystic rune Of the slow years that creep, Charm him with sleep.

Under the ancient beech, Deep in the mossy shade, Where the hill moods may reach, Where the hill dreams may aid, Let him be laid.

CLAIRVOYANCE

The sunlight that makes of the heaven A pathway for sylphids to throng; The wind that makes harps of the forests For spirits to smite into song, Are the image and voice of a vision That comforts my heart and makes strong.

I look in one's face, and the shadows Are lifted: and, lo, I can see, Through windows of evident being, That open on eternity, The form of the essence of Beauty God clothes with His own mystery.

I lean to one's voice, and the wrangle Of living hath pause: and I hear Through doors of invisible spirit, That open on light that is clear, The radiant raiment of Music In the hush of the heavens sweep near.

INDIFFERENCE

She is so dear the wildflowers near Each path she passes by, Are over fain to kiss again Her feet and then to die.

She is so fair the wild birds there That sing upon the bough, Have learned the staff of her sweet laugh, And sing no other now.

Alas! that she should never see, Should never care to know, The wildflower's love, the bird's above, And his, who loves her so!

PICTURED

This is the face of her I've dreamed of long; Here in my heart's despair, This is the face of her Pictured in song.

Look on the lily lids, The eyes of dawn, Deep as a Nereid's, Swimming with dewy lids In waters wan.

Look on the brows of snow, The locks brown-bright; Only young sleep can show Such brows of placid snow, Such locks of night.

The cheeks, like rosy moons, The lips of fire; Love thinks no sweeter tunes Under enchanted moons Than their desire.

Loved lips and eyes and hair, Lo, this is she! She, who sits smiling there Over my heart's despair, Never for me!

SERENADE

The pink rose drops its petals on The moonlit lawn, the moonlit lawn; The moon, like some wide rose of white, Drops down the summer night. No rose there is As sweet as this-- Thy mouth, that greets me with a kiss.

The lattice of thy casement twines With jasmine vines, with jasmine vines; The stars, like jasmine blossoms, lie About the glimmering sky. No jasmine tress Can so caress As thy white arms' soft loveliness.

About thy door magnolia blooms Make sweet the glooms, make sweet the glooms; A moon-magnolia is the dusk Closed in a dewy husk. However much, No bloom gives such Soft fragrance as thy bosom's touch.

The flowers, blooming now, shall pass, And strew the grass, and strew the grass; The night, like some frail flower, dawn Shall soon make gray and wan. Still, still above, The flower of True love shall live forever, love.

KINSHIP

I.

There is no flower of wood or lea, No April flower, as fair as she: O white anemone, who hast The wind's wild grace, Know her a cousin of thy race, Into whose face A presence like the wind's hath passed.

II.

There is no flower of wood or lea, No Maytime flower, as fair as she: O bluebell, tender with the blue Of limpid skies, Thy lineage hath kindred ties In her, whose eyes The heav'n's own qualities imbue.

III.

There is no flower of wood or lea, No Juneday flower, as fair as she: Rose,--odorous with beauty of Life's first and best,-- Behold thy sister here confessed! Whose maiden breast Is fragrant with the dreams of love.

SHE IS SO MUCH

She is so much to me, to me, And, oh! I love her so, I look into my soul and see How comfort keeps me company In hopes she, too, may know. I love her, I love her, I love her, This I know.

So dear she is to me, so dear, And, oh! I love her so, I listen in my heart and hear The voice of gladness singing near In thoughts she, too, may know. I love her, I love her, I love her, This I know.

So much she is to me, so much, And, oh! I love her so, In heart and soul I feel the touch Of angel callers, that are such Dreams as she, too, may know. I love her, I love her, I love her, This I know.

HER EYES

In her dark eyes dreams poetize; The soul sits lost in love: There is no thing in all the skies, To gladden all the world I prize, Like the deep love in her dark eyes, Or one sweet dream thereof.

In her dark eyes, where thoughts arise, Her soul's soft moods I see: Of hope and faith, that make life wise; And charity, whose food is sighs-- Not truer than her own true eyes Is truth's divinity.

In her dark eyes the knowledge lies Of an immortal sod, Her soul once trod in angel-guise, Nor can forget its heavenly ties, Since, there in Heaven, upon her eyes Once gazed the eyes of God.

MESSENGERS

The wind, that gives the rose a kiss With murmured music of the south, Hath kissed a sweeter thing than this,-- The wind, that gives the rose a kiss-- The perfume of her mouth.

The brook, that mirrors skies and trees, And echoes in a grottoed place, Hath held a fairer thing than these,-- The brook, that mirrors skies and trees,-- The image of her face.

O happy wind! O happy brook! So dear before, so free of cares! How dearer since her kiss and look,-- O happy wind! O happy brook!-- Have blessed you unawares!

AT TWENTY-ONE

The rosy hills of her high breasts, Whereon, like misty morning, rests The breathing lace; her auburn hair, Wherein, a star point sparkling there, One jewel burns; her eyes, that keep Recorded dreams of song and sleep; Her mouth, with whose comparison The richest rose were poor and wan; Her throat, her form--what masterpiece Of man can picture half of these! She comes! a classic from the hand Of God! wherethrough I understand What Nature means and Art and Love, And all the lovely Myths thereof.

BABY MARY

TO LITTLE M. E. C. G.

Deep in baby Mary's eyes, Baby Mary's sweet blue eyes, Dwell the golden memories Of the music once her ears Heard in far-off Paradise; So she has no time for tears,-- Baby Mary,-- Listening to the songs she hears.

Soft in baby Mary's face, Baby Mary's lovely face, If you watch, you, too, may trace Dreams her spirit-self hath seen In some far-off Eden-place, Whence her soul she can not wean,-- Baby Mary,-- Dreaming in a world between.

A MOTIVE IN GOLD AND GRAY

I.

To-night he sees their star burn, dewy-bright, Deep in the pansy, eve hath made for it, Low in the west; a placid purple lit At its far edge with warm auroral light: Love's planet hangs above a cedared height; And there in shadow, like gold music writ Of dusk's dark fingers, scale-like fire-flies flit Now up, now down the balmy bars of night. How different from that eve a year ago! Which was a stormy flower in the hair Of dolorous day, whose sombre eyes looked, blurred, Into night's sibyl face, and saw the woe Of parting near, and imaged a despair, As now a hope caught from a homing word.

II.

She came unto him--as the springtime does Unto the land where all lies dead and cold, Until her rosary of days is told And beauty, prayer-like, blossoms where death was.-- Nature divined her coming--yea, the dusk Seemed thinking of that happiness: behold, No cloud it had to blot its marigold Moon, great and golden, o'er the slopes of musk; Whereon earth's voice made music; leaf and stream Lilting the same low lullaby again, To coax the wind, who romped among the hills All day, a tired child, to sleep and dream: When through the moonlight of the locust-lane She came, as spring comes through her daffodils.

III.

White as a lily molded of Earth's milk That eve the moon swam in a hyacinth sky; Soft in the gleaming glens the wind went by, Faint as a phantom clothed in unseen silk: Bright as a naiad's leap, from shine to shade, The runnel twinkled through the shaken brier; Above the hills one long cloud, pulsed with fire, Flashed like a great, enchantment-welded blade. And when the western sky seemed some weird land, And night a witching spell at whose command One sloping star fell green from heav'n; and deep The warm rose opened for the moth to sleep; Then she, consenting, laid her hands in his, And lifted up her lips for their first kiss.

IV.