Part 13

And when she saw me, all her face Bloomed like a wild-rose by the stream; And to my breast a moment’s space I gathered her; and all the place Seemed conscious of some happy dream Come true to add to Earth its grace:

Some union, that was Heav’n’s intent-- For which God made the world--the bliss, The love, that raised her innocent Young face to mine that, smiling, bent And sealed her first words with a kiss-- As Love might close his testament.

ROSE AND RUE

Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean, Do you remember where The willows used to screen The water flowing fair? The mill-stream’s banks of green Where first our love begun, When you were seventeen, And I was twenty-one?

Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean, Do you remember how From th’ old bridge we would lean-- The bridge that’s broken now-- To watch the minnows sheen Through ripples of the Run, When you were seventeen, And I was twenty-one?

Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean, Do you remember, too, The old beech-tree, between Whose roots the windflowers grew? Where oft we sat at E’en, When stars were few or none, When you were seventeen, And I was twenty-one?

Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean, The bark is grown around The names I cut therein, And the true-love knot that bound; The love-knot, clear and clean, I carved when our love begun, When you were seventeen, And I was twenty-one.

Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean, The roof of the farm-house gray Is fallen and mossy green; Its rafters rot away: The old path scarce is seen Where oft our feet would run, When you were seventeen, And I was twenty-one.

Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean, Through each old tree and bough The lone winds cry and keen-- The place is haunted now With ghosts of what-has-been, And dreams of love-long-done, When you were seventeen, And I was twenty-one.

Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean, There, in your world of wealth, There, where you move a queen, Broken in heart and health, Does there ever rise a scene Of days, your thought would shun, When you were seventeen, And I was twenty-one?

Mamie Dean, ah, Mamie Dean, Here, ’mid the rose and rue, Would God that your grave were green, And I were lying, too! Here on the hill, I mean, Where oft we laughed in the sun, When you were seventeen, And I was twenty-one.

A MAID WHO DIED OLD

Frail, shrunken face, so pinched and worn, That life has carved with care and doubt! So weary waiting, night and morn, For that which never came about! Pale lamp, so utterly forlorn, In which God’s light at last is out.

Gray hair, that lies so thin and prim On either side the sunken brows! And soldered eyes, so deep and dim, No word of man could now arouse! And hollow hands, so virgin slim, Forever clasped in silent vows!

Poor breasts! that God designed for love, For baby lips to kiss and press! That never felt, yet dreamed thereof, The human touch, the child caress-- That lie like shriveled blooms above The heart’s long-perished happiness.

O withered body, Nature gave For purposes of death and birth, That never knew, and could but crave Those things perhaps that make life worth-- Rest now, alas! within the grave, Sad shell that served no end of Earth.

COMMUNICANTS

Who knows the things they dream, alas! Or feel, who lie beneath the ground? Perhaps the flowers, the leaves and grass That close them round.

In spring the violets may spell The moods of them we know not of; Or lilies sweetly syllable Their thoughts of love.

Haply, in summer, dew and scent Of all they feel may be a part; Each red rose be the testament Of some rich heart.

The winds of fall be utterance, Perhaps, of saddest things they say; Wild leaves may word some dead romance In some dim way.

In winter all their sleep profound Through frost may speak to grass and stream, Stilling them with the silent sound Of all they dream.

THE DEAD DAY

The west builds high a sepulchre Of cloudy granite and of gold, Where twilight’s priestly hours inter The day like some great king of old.

A censer, rimmed with silver fire, The new moon swings above his tomb; While, organ-stops of God’s own choir, Star after star throbs in the gloom.

And night draws near, the sadly sweet-- A nun whose face is calm and fair-- And kneeling at the dead day’s feet Her soul goes up in silent prayer.

In prayer, we feel through dewy gleam And flowery fragrance, and--above All Earth--the ecstasy and dream That haunt the mystic heart of love.

ALLUREMENT

Across the world she sends me word, From gardens fair as Falerina’s, Now by a blossom, now a bird, To come to her, who long has lured With magic sweeter than Alcina’s.

I know not what her word may mean, I know not what may mean the voices She sends as messengers unseen, That through the hush around me lean, And whisper till my heart rejoices.

Soon must I go. I must away. Must take the path that is appointed. God grant I reach her realm some day, Where by her love, as by a ray, My soul shall be anointed.

AUGUST

I

Clad on with glowing beauty and the peace, Benign, of calm maturity, she stands Among her meadows and her orchard-lands, And on her mellowing gardens and her trees, Out of the ripe abundance of her hands Bestows increase And fruitfulness, as, wrapped in sunny ease, Blue-eyed and blonde she goes, Upon her bosom Summer’s richest rose.

II

And he who follows where her footsteps lead, By hill and rock, by forest-side and stream, May glimpse the glory of her visible dream, In flower and fruit, in rounded nut and seed: She, in whose path the very shadows gleam; Whose humblest weed Seems lovelier than June’s loveliest flower, indeed, And sweeter to the smell Than April’s self within a rainy dell.

III

Hers is a sumptuous simplicity Within the fair Republic of her flowers, Where you may see her standing hours on hours, Breast-deep in gold, soft-holding up a bee To her hushed ear; or sitting under bowers Of greenery, A butterfly a-tilt upon her knee; Or lounging on her hip, Dancing a cricket on her finger-tip.

IV

Ay, let me breathe hot scents that tell of you: The hoary catnip and the meadow-mint, On which the honor of your touch doth print Itself as odor. Let me drink the hue Of ironweed and mist-flower here that hint With purple and blue, The rapture that your presence doth imbue Their inmost essence with, Immortal, though as transient as a myth.

V

Yea, let me feed on sounds that still assure Me where you hide: the brooks’, whose happy din Tells where, the deep, retired woods within, Disrobed, you bathe; the birds’, whose drowsy lure Tells where you slumber, your warm, nestling chin Soft on the pure, Pink cushion of your palm.... What better cure For care and memory’s ache Than to behold you thus, and watch you wake.

THE BUSH-SPARROW

I

Ere wild-haws, looming in the glooms, Build bolted drifts of breezy blooms; And in the whistling hollow there The red-bud bends, as brown and bare As buxom Roxy’s up-stripped arm; From some gray hickory or larch, Sighed o’er the sodden meads of March, The sad heart thrills and reddens warm To hear you braving the rough storm, Frail courier of green-gathering powers; Rebelling sap in trees and flowers; Love’s minister come heralding-- O sweet saint-voice among bleak bowers! O brown-red pursuivant of Spring!

II

“Moan,” sob the woodland waters still Down bloomless ledges of the hill; And gray, gaunt clouds like harpies hang In harpy heavens, and swoop and clang Sharp beaks and talons of the wind: Black scowl the forests, and unkind The far fields as the near: while song Seems murdered and all beauty wrong. One weak frog only in the thaw Of spawny pools wakes cold and raw, Expires a melancholy bass And stops as if bewildered: then Along the frowning wood again, Flung in the thin wind’s vulture face, From woolly tassels of the proud, Red-bannered maples, long and loud, “The Spring is come! is here! her Grace! her Grace!

III

“Her Grace, the Spring! her Grace! her Grace! Climbs, beautiful and sunny browed, Up, up the kindling hills and wakes Blue berries in the berry brakes: With fragrant flakes, that blow and bleach, Deep-powders smothered quince and peach: Eyes dogwoods with a thousand eyes: Teaches each sod how to be wise With twenty wildflowers to one weed, And kisses germs that they may seed. In purest purple and sweet white Treads up the happier hills of light, Bloom-, cloudy-borne, song in her hair And balm and beam of odorous air. Winds, her retainers; and the rains Her yeomen strong who sweep the plains: Her scarlet knights of dawn, and gold Of eve, her panoply unfold: Her herald tabarded behold! Awake to greet! prepare to sing! She comes, the darling Duchess, Spring!”

QUIET

A log-hut in the solitude, A clapboard roof to rest beneath! This side, the shadow-haunted wood; That side, the sunlight-haunted heath.

At daybreak Morn will come to me In raiment of the white winds spun; Slim in her rosy hand the key That opes the gateway of the sun.

Her smile will help my heart enough With love to labor all the day, And cheer the road, whose rocks are rough, With her smooth footprints, each a ray.

At dusk a voice will call afar, A lone voice like the whippoorwill’s; And, on her shimmering brow one star, Night will descend the western hills.

She at my door till dawn will stand, With gothic eyes, that, dark and deep, Are mirrors of a mystic land, Fantastic with the towns of sleep.

MUSIC

Thou, oh, thou! Thou of the chorded shell and golden plectrum, thou Of the dark eyes and pale pacific brow! Music, who by the plangent waves, Or in the echoing night of labyrinthine caves, Or on God’s mountains, lonely as the stars, Touchest reverberant bars Of immemorial sorrow and amaze;-- Keeping regret and memory awake, And all the immortal ache Of love that leans upon the past’s sweet days In retrospection!--now, oh, now, Interpreter and heart-physician, thou Who gazest on the heaven and the hell Of life, and singest each as well, Touch with thy all-mellifluous finger-tips Or thy melodious lips, This sickness named my soul, Making it whole As is an echo of a chord, Or some symphonic word, Or sweet vibrating sigh, That deep, resurgent, still doth rise and die On thy voluminous roll; Part of the beauty and the mystery That axles Earth with music; as a slave, Swinging it round and round on each sonorous pole, ’Mid spheric harmony, And choral majesty, And diapasoning of wind and wave; Speeding it on its far elliptic way ’Mid vasty anthemings of night and day.-- O cosmic cry Of two eternities, wherein we see The phantasms, Death and Life, At endless strife Above the silence of a monster grave.

A DREAM SHAPE

With moon-white hearts that held a gleam I gathered wildflowers in a dream, And shaped a woman, whose sweet blood Was odor of the wildwood bud.

From dew, the starlight arrowed through, I wrought a woman’s eyes of blue; The lids that on her eyeballs lay Were rose-pale petals of the May.

Out of a rosebud’s veins I drew The fragrant crimson beating through The languid lips of her, whose kiss Was as a poppy’s drowsiness.

Out of the moonlight and the air I wrought the glory of her hair, That o’er her eyes’ blue heaven lay Like some gold cloud o’er dawn of day.

I took the music of the breeze And water, whispering in the trees, And shaped the soul that breathed below A woman’s blossom breasts of snow.

A shadow’s shadow in the glass Of sleep, my spirit saw her pass: And thinking of it now, meseems We only live within our dreams.

For in that time she was to me More real than our reality; More real than Earth, more real than I-- The unreal things that pass and die.

THE OLD BARN

Low, swallow-swept and gray, Between the orchard and the spring, All its wide windows overflowing hay, And crannied doors a-swing, The old barn stands to-day.

Deep in its hay the Leghorn hides A round white nest; and, humming soft On roof and rafter, or its log-rude sides, Black in the sun-shot loft, The building hornet glides.

Along its corn-crib, cautiously As thieving fingers, skulks the rat; Or in warped stalls of fragrant timothy, Gnaws at some loosened slat, Or passes shadowy.

A dream of drouth made audible Before its door, hot, harsh, and shrill All day the locust sings.... What other spell Shall hold it, lazier still Than the long day’s, now tell:--

Dusk and the cricket and the strain Of tree-toad and of frog; and stars That burn above the rich west’s ribbéd stain; And dropping pasture bars, And cowbells up the lane.

Night and the moon and katydid, And leaf-lisp of the wind-touched boughs; And mazy shadows that the fireflies thrid; And sweet breath of the cows, And the lone owl here hid.

THE WOOD WITCH

There is a woodland witch who lies With bloom-bright limbs and beam-bright eyes, Among the water-flags that rank The slow brook’s heron-haunted bank. The dragonflies, in brass and blue, Are signs she works her sorcery through; Weird, wizard characters she weaves Her spells with under forest leaves,-- These wait her word, like imps, upon The gray flag-pods; their wings, of lawn And gauze; their bodies, gleaming green. While o’er the wet sand,--left between The running water and the still,-- In pansy hues and daffodil, The fancies that she doth devise Assume the forms of butterflies, Rich-colored.--And ’tis she you hear, Whose sleepy rune, hummed in the ear Of silence, bees and beetles purr, And the dry-droning locusts whirr; Till, where the wood is very lone, Vague monotone meets monotone, And Slumber is begot and born, A faery child beneath the thorn. There is no mortal who may scorn The witchery she spreads around Her dim demesne, wherein is bound The beauty of abandoned time, As some sweet thought ’twixt rhyme and rhyme. And through her spells you shall behold The blue turn gray, the gray turn gold Of hollow heaven; and the brown Of twilight vistas twinkled down With fireflies; and in the gloom Feel the cool vowels of perfume Slow-syllabled of weed and bloom. But, in the night, at languid rest,-- When like a spirit’s naked breast The moon slips from a silver mist,-- With star-bound brow, and star-wreathed wrist, If you should see her rise and wave You welcome--ah! what thing could save You then? forevermore her slave!

MAY

The golden discs of the rattlesnake-weed, That spangle the woods and dance-- No gleam of gold that the twilights hold Is strong as their necromance: For, under the oaks where the woodpaths lead, The golden discs of the rattlesnake-weed Are the May’s own utterance.

The azure stars of the bluet bloom, That sprinkle the woodland’s trance-- No blink of blue that a cloud lets through Is sweet as their countenance: For, over the knolls that the woods perfume, The azure stars of the bluet bloom Are the light of the May’s own glance.

With her wondering words and her looks she comes, In a sunbeam of a gown; She needs but think and the blossoms wink, But look, and they shower down. By orchard ways, where the wild bee hums, With her wondering words and her looks she comes Like a little maid to town.

RAIN

I

Around, the stillness deepened; then the grain Went wild with wind; and every briery lane Was swept with dust; and then, tempestuous black, Hillward the tempest heaved a monster back, That on the thunder leaned as on a cane; And on huge shoulders bore a cloudy pack, That gullied gold from many a lightning crack: One great drop splashed and wrinkled down the pane, And then field, hill, and wood were lost in rain.

II

At last, through clouds,--as from a cavern hewn Into night’s heart,--the sun burst, angry roon; And every cedar, with its weight of wet, Against the sunset’s fiery splendor set, Startled to beauty, seemed with rubies strewn: Then in drenched gardens, like sweet phantoms met, Dim odors rose of pink and mignonette; And in the east a confidence, that soon Grew to the calm assurance of the moon.

FALL

Sad-hearted Spirit of the solitudes, Who comest through the ruin-wedded woods! Gray-gowned in fog, gold-girdled with the gloom Of tawny sunsets; burdened with perfume Of rain-wet uplands, chilly with the mist; And all the beauty of the fire-kissed Cold forests crimsoning thy indolent way, Odorous of death and drowsy with decay. I think of thee as seated ’mid the showers Of languid leaves that cover up the flowers,-- The little flower-sisterhoods, whom June Once gave wild sweetness to, as to a tune A singer gives her soul’s wild melody,-- Watching the squirrel store his granary. Or, ’mid old orchards, I have pictured thee: Thy hair’s profusion blown about thy back; One lovely shoulder bathed with gypsy black; Upon thy palm one nestling cheek, and sweet The rosy russets tumbled at thy feet.

Was it a voice lamenting for the flowers? Or heart-sick bird that sang of happier hours? A cricket dirging days that soon must die? Or did the ghost of Summer wander by?

SUNSET IN AUTUMN

Blood-colored oaks, that stand against a sky of gold and brass; Gaunt slopes, on which the bleak leaves glow of brier and sassafras, And broom-sedge strips of smoky pink and pearl-gray clumps of grass In which, beneath the ragged sky, the rain pools gleam like glass.

From west to east, from wood to wood, along the forest-side, The winds,--the sowers of the Lord,--with thunderous footsteps stride; Their stormy hands rain acorns down; and mad leaves, wildly dyed, Like tatters of their rushing cloaks, stream round them far and wide.

The frail leaf-cricket in the weeds sounds its far fairy-bell; And like a torch of phantom ray the milkweed’s windy shell Glimmers; while, wrapped in withered dreams, the wet, autumnal smell Of loam and leaf, like Fall’s own ghost, steals over field and dell.

The oaks, against a copper sky--o’er which, like some black lake Of Dis, bronze clouds, (like surges fringed with sullen fire) break-- Loom sombre as Doom’s citadel above the vales that make A pathway to a land of mist the moon’s pale feet shall take.

Now, dyed with burning carbuncle, a limbo-litten pane, Red in wild walls of storm, the west opens to hill and plain, On which the wild-geese ink themselves, a far triangled train; And then the shuttering clouds close down--and night it comes again.

CONTENT

When I behold how some pursue Fame that is Care’s embodiment, Or fortune, whose false face looks true,-- An humble home with sweet content Is all I ask for me and you.

An humble home, where pigeons coo, Whose path leads under breezy lines Of frosty-berried cedars to A gate, one mass of trumpet-vines, Is all I ask for me and you.

A garden, which, all summer through, The roses old make redolent, And morning-glories, gay of hue, And tansy with its homely scent, Is all I ask for me and you.

An orchard, that the pippins strew, From whose bruised gold the juices spring; A vineyard, where the grapes hang blue, Wine-big and ripe for vintaging, Is all I ask for me and you.

A lane, that leads to some far view Of forest or of fallow-land, Bloomed o’er of rose and meadow-rue, Each with a bee in its hot hand, Is all I ask for me and you.

At morn, a pathway deep with dew, And birds that vary time and tune; At eve, a sunset avenue, And whippoorwills that haunt the moon, Is all I ask for me and you.

Dear heart, with wants so small and few, And faith, that’s better far than gold, A lowly friend; a child or two, To care for us when we are old, Is all I ask for me and you.

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, who sought June’s butterfly for days, Now find it--like a coreopsis bloom-- Amber and seal, rain-murdered ’neath the blaze Of this sunflower’s plume.

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

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

And where the wood-gnats dance, a little 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.

DISCOVERY

What is it now that I shall seek Where woods dip downward, in the hills?-- A mossy nook, a ferny creek, And May among the daffodils.

Or in the valley’s vistaed glow, Past rocks of terraced trumpet-vines, Shall I behold her coming slow, Sweet May, among the columbines?

With red-bud cheeks and bluet eyes, Big eyes, the homes of happiness, To meet me with the old surprise, Her hoiden hair all bonnetless.

Who waits for me, where, note for note, The birds make glad the forest trees? A dogwood blossom at her throat, My May among th’ anemones.

As sweetheart breezes kiss the blooms, And dewdrops drink the moon’s bright beams, My soul shall kiss her lips’ perfumes, And drain the magic of her dreams.

THE OLD SPRING

I

Under rocks whereon the rose Like a strip of morning glows; Where the azure-throated newt Drowses on the twisted root; And the brown bees, humming homeward, Stop to suck the honeydew; Fern and leaf-hid gleaming gloamward, Drips the wildwood spring I knew, Drips the spring my boyhood knew.

II