Part 2

The hills hang woods around, where green, below Dark, breezy boughs of beech-trees, mats the moss, Crisp with the brittle hulls of last year’s nuts; The water hums one bar there; and a glow Of gold lies steady where the trailers toss Red, bugled blossoms and a rock abuts; In spots the wild-phlox and oxalis grow Where beech-roots bulge the loam, and welt across The grass-grown road and roll it into ruts.

And where the sumach brakes grow dusk and dense, Among the rocks, great yellow violets, Blue-bells and windflowers bloom; the agaric In dampness crowds; a fungus, thick, intense With gold and crimson and wax-white, that sets The May-apples along the terraced creek At bold defiance. Where the old rail-fence Divides the hollow, there the bee-bird whets His bill, and there the elder hedge is thick.

No one can miss it; for two cat-birds nest, Calling all morning, in the trumpet-vine; And there at noon the pewee sits and floats A woodland welcome; and his very best At eve the red-bird sings, as if to sign The record of its loveliness with notes. At night the moon stoops over it to rest, And unreluctant stars, in whose faint shine There runs a whisper as of wind-swept oats.

A HOUSE IN THE HILLS

Old hearts that hold the saddest memories Are the most beautiful; and such make sweet Light, happy moods of younger natures which Their sadness contacts and so sanctifies.

And such to me is an old gabled house, Deserted, and neglected, and unknown, Lost in the tangled hollow of its hills, Dark, cedared hills, and dreamy orchard-lands; With but its host of shrouded memories Haunting its ruined rooms and desolate halls,-- Pathetic with their fallen finery,-- And whispering through its cob-webbed crevices And roomy hearths, that sigh with ceaseless wind, Undreamed of things that happened long ago.

Here in gray afternoons I love to sit, And hear the running rain along the roof; The creak and crack of noises that are born Of silence or mysterious agencies; The fitful footfalls of the wind adown Grand, winding stairways, massy banistered; A clapping door and then a sudden hush As if the old house held its breath to see,-- Invisible to me,--a presence pass, That brings a pleasant terror stiffening through The tingling veins and staring from the eyes. Then comes the rain again along the roof; And in rain-rotted room and rain-stained hall The drip and whisper of the wind and rain Seem viewless footsteps of the sometime lords And mistresses who lived here in the past. And could the state material but assume A state clairvoyant, then the dream-drugged eyes, Perhaps, might see, from room to dusty room, The ghosts of stately gentlemen glide by, And glimmering ladies, all beruffled, trail Long, haughty silks miraculously stiff.

THE WIND

“_Wind of the East, if thou pass by the land where my loved ones dwell, I pray, The fullest of greetings bear to them from me, their lover, and say That I am the pledge of passion still._”--

FROM THE ARABIC.

The ways of the wind are eerie, And I love them all: The blithe, the mad, and the dreary, Spring, winter, and fall.

When it tells to the waiting crocus Its beak to show; And hangs on the wayside locust Bloom-bunches of snow.

When it comes like a balmy blessing From the musky wood, The half-grown roses caressing Till their cheeks burn blood.

When it roars in the autumn season, And whines with rain, Or sleet, like a mind without reason, Or a soul in pain.

When the woodways, once so spicy With bud and bloom, Are desolate, dead and icy As the icy tomb.

When the puffed owl, crouched and frowsy, In the hollow tree, Sobs, dolorous, cold, and drowsy, Its shuddering melody.

Then I love to sit in December Where the big hearth sings, And, dreaming, forget and remember A host of things.

And the wind--I hear how it strangles, And wails and sighs On the roof’s sharp, shivering angles That front the skies.

How it shouts and romps and tumbles In attics o’erhead; In the great-throated chimney rumbles, Then all at once falls dead;

Then comes like the footsteps stealing Of a child on the stair, Or a bent, old gentleman feeling His slippered way with care.

And my soul grows anxious-hearted For those once dear-- The long-lost loves, departed, In the wind draw near.

And I seem to see their faces-- Not one estranged-- In their old accustomed places Round the wide hearth ranged.

And the wind, that waits and poises Where the shadows sway, Seems their visionary voices Calling me far away.

Then I wake in tears and hear it Wailing outside my door,-- Or is it some wandering spirit Weeping upon the moor?

RAIN IN THE WOODS

When on the leaves the rain persists, And every gust brings showers down; When copse and woodland smoke with mists, I take the old road out of town Into the hills through which it twists.

I find the vale where catnip grows, Where boneset blooms, with moisture bowed; The vale through which the red creek flows, Turbid with hill-washed clay, and loud As some wild horn a huntsman blows.

Around the root the beetle glides, A burnished beryl; and the ant, Large, agate-red, a garnet, slides Beneath the rock; and every plant Is roof for some frail thing that hides.

Like knots against the trunks of trees The lichen-colored moths are pressed; And, wedged in hollow blooms, the bees Hang pollen-clotted; in its nest The wasp has crawled and lies at ease.

The locust harsh, that sharply saws The silence of the summer noon; The katydid, that thinly draws Its fine file o’er the bars of moon; And grasshopper that drills each pause:

The mantis, long-clawed, furtive, lean-- Fierce feline of the insect hordes-- And dragonfly, gauze-winged and green, Beneath the wild-grape’s leaves and gourd’s, Have housed themselves and rest unseen.

The butterfly and forest-bird Are huddled on the same gnarled bough, From which, like some rain-voweled word That dampness hoarsely utters now, The tree-toad’s guttural voice is heard.

I crouch and listen: and again The woods are filled with phantom forms-- With shapes, grotesque in cloudy train, That rise and reach to me cool arms Of mist: dim, wandering wraiths of rain.

I see them come; fantastic, fair; Chill, mushroom-colored: sky and earth Grow ghostly with their floating hair And trailing limbs, that have their birth In wetness--fungi of the air.

O wraiths of rain! O ghosts of mist! Still fold me, hold me, and pursue! Still let my lips by yours be kissed! Still draw me with your hands of dew Unto the tryst, the dripping tryst.

HEAT

I

Now is it as if Spring had never been, And Winter but a memory and a dream, Here where the Summer stands, her lap of green Heaped high with bloom and beam, Among her blackberry-lilies, low that lean To kiss her feet; or, freckle-browed, that stare Upon the dragonfly which, slimly seen, Like a blue jewel flickering in her hair, Sparkles above them there.

II

Knee-deep among the tepid pools the cows Chew a slow cud or switch a slower tail, Half-sunk in sleep beneath the beechen boughs, Where thin the wood-gnats ail. From bloom to bloom the languid butterflies drowse; The sleepy bees make hardly any sound; The only things the sun-rays can arouse, It seems, are two black beetles rolling round Upon the dusty ground.

III

Within its channel glares the creek and shrinks, Beneath whose rocks the furtive crawfish hides In stagnant places, where the green frog blinks, And water-strider glides. Far hotter seems it for the bird that drinks, The startled kingfisher that screams and flies; Hotter and lonelier for the purples and pinks Of weeds that bloom, whose sultry perfumes rise Stifling the swooning skies.

IV

From ragweed fallows, rye-fields, heaped with sheaves, From blistering rocks, no moss or lichens crust, And from the road, where every hoof-stroke heaves A cloud of burning dust, The hotness quivers, making limp the leaves, That loll like panting tongues. The pulsing heat Seems a wan wimple that the Summer weaves, A veil, in which she wraps,--as in a sheet,-- The shriveling corn and wheat.

V

Furious, incessant in the weeds and briers The sawing weed bugs sing: and, heat-begot, The grasshoppers, so many strident wires, Staccato stinging hot: A lash of whirling sound that never tires, The locust flails the noon, where harnessed Thirst, Beside the road-spring, many a shod hoof mires, Into the trough thrusts his hot head; immersed, Round which cool bubbles burst.

VI

The sad, sweet voice of some wood-spirit who Laments while watching a loved oak-tree die, From the deep forest comes the wood-dove’s coo, A long, lost, lonely cry.-- Oh, for a breeze! a mighty wind to woo The woods to stormy laughter; sow like grain The world with freshness of invisible dew, And pile above far, fevered hill and plain Cloud-bastions, black with rain.

YOUNG SEPTEMBER

I

With a look and a laugh where the stream was flowing, September led me along the land; Where the goldenrod and lobelia, glowing, Seemed burning torches within her hand. And faint as the thistle’s or milkweed’s feather I glimpsed her form in the sparkling weather.

II

Now ’twas her hand and now her hair That tossed me welcome everywhere; That lured me onward through the stately rooms Of forest, hung and carpeted with glooms, And windowed wide with azure, doored with green, Through which rich glimmers of her robe were seen-- Now, like some deep marsh-mallow, rosy-gold; Now, like the great Joe-Pye-weed, fold on fold Of heavy mauve; and now, like the intense Massed ironweed, a purple opulence.

III

Along the bank in a wild procession Of gold and sapphire the blossoms blew; And borne on the breeze came their soft confession In syllabled musk and honey-dew; In words unheard that their lips kept saying, Sweet as the lips of children praying.

IV

And so, meseemed, I heard them tell How here her loving glance once fell Upon this bank, and from its azure grew The ageratum mist-flower’s happy hue; How from her kiss, as crimson as the dawn, The cardinal-flow’r drew its vermilion; And from her hair’s blond touch th’ elecampane Evolved the glory of its golden rain; While from her starry footsteps, redolent, The aster pearled its flowery firmament.

THE VINTAGER

Among the fragrant grapes she bows; Long violet clusters heap her hands: And, with bright brows, on him bestows Sweet looks, like soft commands.

And from her sunburnt throat, at times, As bubbles burst on new-made wine, A happy fit of merry rhymes Rings down the hills of vine.

And in his heart, remorseless, sweet, Grew big the red-grape, passion, there; His heart, that, ever at her feet, Was filled with love’s despair.

But she, who ne’er the honeyed must Of love had drained, a grown-up child, Saw in him--merely one to trust, And broke his heart, and smiled.

BLACK VESPER’S PAGEANTS

The day, all fierce with carmine, turns An Indian face towards Earth and dies; The west, like some gaunt vase, inurns Its ashes under smoldering skies; Athwart whose bowl one red cloud streams, Wild as some dream an Aztec dreams.

Now shadows mass above the world, And night comes on with wind and rain; The mulberry-colored leaves are hurled Like frantic hands against the pane. And through the forests, bending low, Night stalks like some gigantic Woe.

In hollows where the thistle shakes A hoar bloom like a witch’s light, From weed and flower the rain-wind rakes Dead sweetness--as a wildman might, From autumn leaves, the woods among, Dig some dead woman, fair and young.

Now let me walk the woodland ways, Alone! except for thoughts, that are Akin to such wild nights and days-- A portion of the storm that far Fills Heaven and Earth tumultuously, And my own soul with ecstasy.

A TWILIGHT MOTH

Dusk is thy dawn; when Eve puts on her state Of gold and purple in the marbled west, Thou comest forth like some embodied trait, Or dim conceit, a lily-bud confessed; Or, of a rose, the visible wish; that, white, Goes softly messengering through the night, Whom each expectant flower makes its guest.

All day the primroses have thought of thee, Their golden heads close-haremed from the heat; All day the mystic moonflowers silkenly Veiled snowy faces,--that no bee might greet Or butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed;-- Keeping Sultana-charms for thee, at last, Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.

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 thou 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 spectre 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 fairy firmaments wherein one sees Mimic Boötes and the Pleiades, Thou steerest like some fairy 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 GRASSHOPPER

I

What joy you take in making hotness hotter, In emphasizing dullness with your buzz, Making monotony more monotonous! When summer comes, and drouth hath dried the water In all the creeks, we hear your ragged rasp Filing the stillness. Or,--as urchins beat A stagnant pond whereon the bubbles gasp,-- Your switch-like music whips the midday heat. O burr of sound caught in the Summer’s hair, We hear you everywhere.

II

We hear you in the vines and berry-brambles, Along the unkempt lanes, among the weeds, Amid the shadeless meadows, gray with seeds, And by the wood, round which the rail-fence rambles, Sawing the sunlight with your sultry saw. Or,--like to tomboy truants, at their play With noisy mirth among the barn’s deep straw,-- You sing away the careless summer-day. O brier-like voice that clings in idleness To Summer’s drowsy dress.

III

You tramp of insects, vagrant and unheeding, Improvident, who of the summer make One long green meal-time, and for winter take No care, aye singing or just merely feeding! Happy-go-lucky vagabond,--though frost Shall pierce, ere long, your coat of green or brown, And pinch your body,--let no song be lost, But as you lived, into your grave go down-- Like some small poet with his little rhyme, Forgotten of all time.

FOREST AND FIELD

I

Green, watery jets of light let through The rippling foliage drenched with dew; And golden glimmers, warm and dim, That in the vistaed distance swim; Where, round the wood-spring’s oozy urn, The limp, loose fronds of forest fern Trail like the tresses, green and wet, A wood-nymph binds with violet. O’er rocks that bulge and roots that knot The emerald-amber mosses clot; From matted walls of brier and brush The elder nods its plumes of plush; And, Argus-eyed with bloom on bloom, The wild-rose breathes its wild perfume; May-apples, ripening yellow, lean With oblong fruit, a lemon-green, Near Indian-turnips, long of stem, That bear an acorn-oval gem, As if some woodland Bacchus there,-- While braiding locks of hyacinth hair With ivy-tod,--had idly tossed His thyrsus down and so had lost: And blood-root, that from scarlet wombs Puts forth, in spring, its milk-white blooms, That then like starry footsteps shine Of April under beech and pine; At which the gnarléd eyes of trees Stare, big as Fauns’, at Dryadës, That bend above a fountain’s spar, As white and naked as a star.

The stagnant stream flows sleepily Thick-paved with lily-pads; the bee,-- Brown, honey-drunk, a Bassarid,-- Booms past the mottled toad, that, hid In calamus and blue-eyed grass, Beside the water’s pooling glass, Silenus-like, eyes stolidly The Mænad-glittering dragonfly. And pennyroyal and peppermint Pour dry-hot odors without stint From fields and banks of many streams; And in their scent one almost seems To see Demeter pass, her breath Sweet with her triumph over death.-- A haze of floating saffron; sound Of shy, crisp creepings o’er the ground; The dip and stir of twig and leaf; Tempestuous gusts of spices brief Borne over bosks of sassafras By winds that foot it on the grass; Sharp, sudden songs and whisperings, That hint at untold, hidden things-- Pan and Sylvanus who of old Kept sacred each wild wood and wold. A wily light beneath the trees Quivers and dusks with every breeze-- A Hamadryad, haply, who,-- Culling her morning meal of dew From frail, accustomed cups of flowers,-- Now sees some Satyr in the bowers, Or hears his goat-hoof snapping press A brittle branch, and in distress Shrinks back; her dark, dishevelled hair Veiling her limbs one instant there.

II

Down precipices of the dawn The rivers of the day are drawn, The soundless torrents, free and far, Of gold that deluge every star. There is a sound of winds and wings That fills the woods with carollings; And, dashed on moss and flower and fern, And leaves, that quiver, breathe and burn, Rose-radiance smites the solitudes, The dew-drenched hills, the dripping woods That twitter as with canticles Of bird and brook; and air that smells Of flowers, and buds, and boisterous bees, Delirious honey and wet trees.-- Through briers that trip them, one by one, With swinging pails, that flash the sun, A troop of girls comes--berriers, Whose bare feet glitter where they pass Through dewdrop-trembling tufts of grass. And, oh! their laughter and their cheers Wake Echo on her shrubby rocks Who, answering, from her mountain mocks With rapid fairy horns--as if Each mossy vale and weedy cliff Had its imperial Oberon, Who, seeking his Titania, hid In coverts caverned from the sun, In kingly wrath had called and chid.

Cloud-feathers, oozing orange light, Make rich the Indian locks of Night; Her dusky waist with sultry gold Girdled and buckled fold on fold. One star. A sound of bleating flocks. Great shadows stretched along the rocks, Like giant curses overthrown By some Arthurian champion. Soft-swimming sorceries of mist That streak blue glens with amethyst. And, tinkling in the clover dells, The twilight sound of cattle-bells. And where the marsh in reed and grass Burns, angry as a shattered glass, The flies blur sudden gold, and shine Like drops of amber-scattered wine Spun high by reeling Bacchanals, When Bacchus wreathes his curling hair With vine-leaves, and from every lair His worshippers around him calls. They come, they come, a happy throng, The berriers with lilt and song; Their pails brimmed black to tin-bright eaves With luscious fruit, kept cool with leaves Of aromatic sassafras; ’Twixt which a berry often slips, Like laughter, from the purple mass, Wine-swollen as Silenus’ lips.

III

The tanned and tired Noon climbs high Up burning reaches of the sky; Below the drowsy belts of pines The rock-ledged river leaps and shines; And over rainless hill and dell Is blown the harvest’s sultry smell: While, in the fields, one sees and hears The brawny-throated harvesters,-- Their red brows beaded with the heat,-- By twos and threes among the wheat Flash their hot scythes; behind them press The binders--men and maids who sing Like some mad troop of piping Pan;-- While all the hillsides, echoing, ring Such sounds of Ariel airiness As haunted freckled Caliban.

“O ho! O ho! ’tis noon I say. The roses blow. Away, away, above the hay, To the song o’ the bees the roses sway; The love-lays that they hum all day, So low! so low! The roses’ Minnesingers they.”

Up velvet lawns of lilac skies The tawny moon begins to rise Behind low, blue-black hills of trees,-- As rises up, in siren seas, To rock in purple deeps, hip-hid, A virgin-bosomed Oceanid.-- Gaunt shadows crouch by tree and scaur, Dusk’s shaggy Satyrs waiting for The Nymphs of moon, the Dryads white, Who take with loveliness the night, And glorify it with their love. The sweet, far notes I hear, I hear, Beyond dim pines and mellow ways; The song of some fair harvester, The lovely Limnad of the grove, Whose singing charms me while it slays.

“O deep! O deep! the earth and air Are sunk in sleep. Adieu to care! Now everywhere Is rest; and by the old oak there The maiden with the nut-brown hair Doth keep, doth keep Tryst with her lover the young and fair.”

IV