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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12664-h/12664-h.htm b/12664-h/12664-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd75c0a --- /dev/null +++ b/12664-h/12664-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1964 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lyrics Of Earth, by Archibald Lampman + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } + + .center { text-align: center; } + .right { text-align: right; } + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .poem {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left; width: 50%;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12664 ***</div> + +<h1 style="margin-top: 80px;">LYRICS OF EARTH</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 101px;"> +<img src="images/tp.png" style="margin-top: 40px; margin-bottom: 40px;" width="101" height="150" alt="Printer's Colophon" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center">BOSTON</p> + +<p class="center">COPELAND AND DAY</p> + +<p class="center" style="font-size: smaller;">MDCCCXCV</p> + + +<p class="center" style="margin-top: 40px; margin-bottom: 80px;">Copyright by Copeland and Day, 1895.</p> + + + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<table summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr> +<td>The Sweetness of Life</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_SWEETNESS_OF_LIFE">5</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>God-speed to the Snow</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#GOD-SPEED_TO_THE_SNOW">7</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>April in the Hills</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#APRIL_IN_THE_HILLS">8</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Forest Moods</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#FOREST_MOODS">9</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td style="padding-right: 80px;">The Return of the Year</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_RETURN_OF_THE_YEAR">10</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Favorites of Pan</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#FAVORITES_OF_PAN">11</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>The Meadow</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_MEADOW">14</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>In May</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#IN_MAY">17</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Life and Nature</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#LIFE_AND_NATURE">19</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>With the Night</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#WITH_THE_NIGHT">20</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>June</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#JUNE">21</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Distance</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#DISTANCE">24</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>The Bird and the Hour</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_BIRD_AND_THE_HOUR">25</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>After Rain</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#AFTER_RAIN">25</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Cloud-break</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#CLOUD-BREAK">27</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>The Moon-path</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_MOON-PATH">28</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Comfort of the Fields</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#COMFORT_OF_THE_FIELDS">29</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>At the Ferry</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#AT_THE_FERRY">32</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>September</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#SEPTEMBER">35</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>A Re-assurance</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#A_RE-ASSURANCE">38</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>The Poet's Possession</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_POETS_POSSESSION">39</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>An Autumn Landscape</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#AN_AUTUMN_LANDSCAPE">39</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>In November</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#IN_NOVEMBER">40</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>By an Autumn Stream</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#BY_AN_AUTUMN_STREAM">42</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Snowbirds</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#SNOWBIRDS">44</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Snow</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#SNOW">45</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Sunset</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#SUNSET">46</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Winter-store</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#WINTER-STORE">48</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>The Sun Cup</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_SUN_CUP">56</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>TO MY MOTHER</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Mother, to whose valiant will,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Battling long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What the heaping years fulfil,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Light and song, I owe;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Send my little book a-field,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fronting praise or blame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the shining flag and shield<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of your name.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="THE_SWEETNESS_OF_LIFE" id="THE_SWEETNESS_OF_LIFE"></a>THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It fell on a day I was happy,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the winds, the concave sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flowers and the beasts in the meadow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seemed happy even as I;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I stretched my hands to the meadow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the bird, the beast, the tree:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Why are ye all so happy?"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I cried, and they answered me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What sayest thou, Oh meadow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That stretches so wide, so far,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That none can say how many<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thy misty marguerites are?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what say ye, red roses,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That o'er the sun-blanched wall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From your high black-shadowed trellis<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like flame or blood-drops fall?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">"We are born, we are reared, and we linger<br /></span> +<span class="i6">A various space and die;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">We dream, and are bright and happy,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">But we cannot answer why."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What sayest thou, Oh shadow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That from the dreaming hill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All down the broadening valley<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Liest so sharp and still?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thou, Oh murmuring brooklet,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whereby in the noonday gleam</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">The loosestrife burns like ruby,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the branchèd asters dream?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">"We are born, we are reared, and we linger<br /></span> +<span class="i6">A various space and die;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">We dream and are very happy,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">But we cannot answer why."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And then of myself I questioned,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That like a ghost the while<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stood from me and calmly answered,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With slow and curious smile:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Thou art born as the flowers, and wilt linger<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thine own short space and die;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou dream'st and art strangely happy,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But thou canst not answer why."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="GOD-SPEED_TO_THE_SNOW" id="GOD-SPEED_TO_THE_SNOW"></a>GOD-SPEED TO THE SNOW</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">March is slain; the keen winds fly;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nothing more is thine to do;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">April kisses thee good-bye;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou must haste and follow too;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silent friend that guarded well<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Withered things to make us glad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shyest friend that could not tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Half the kindly thought he had.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haste thee, speed thee, O kind snow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down the dripping valleys go,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the fields and gleaming meadows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the slaying hours behold thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the forests whose slim shadows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brown and leafless cannot fold thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the cedar lands aflame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With gold light that cleaves and quivers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Songs that winter may not tame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drone of pines and laugh of rivers.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May thy passing joyous be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To thy father, the great sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the sun is getting stronger;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth hath need of thee no longer;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Go, kind snow, God-speed to thee!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="APRIL_IN_THE_HILLS" id="APRIL_IN_THE_HILLS"></a>APRIL IN THE HILLS</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To-day the world is wide and fair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With sunny fields of lucid air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And waters dancing everywhere;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The snow is almost gone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The noon is builded high with light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And over heaven's liquid height,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In steady fleets serene and white,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The happy clouds go on.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The channels run, the bare earth steams,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And every hollow rings and gleams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With jetting falls and dashing streams;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The rivers burst and fill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fields are full of little lakes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when the romping wind awakes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The water ruffles blue and shakes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the pines roar on the hill.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The crows go by, a noisy throng;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">About the meadows all day long<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The shore-lark drops his brittle song;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And up the leafless tree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nut-hatch runs, and nods, and clings;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bluebird dips with flashing wings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The robin flutes, the sparrow sings,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the swallows float and flee.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I break the spirit's cloudy bands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A wanderer in enchanted lands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I feel the sun upon my hands;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i2">And far from care and strife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The broad earth bids me forth. I rise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With lifted brow and upward eyes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I bathe my spirit in blue skies,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And taste the springs of life.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I feel the tumult of new birth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I waken with the wakening earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I match the bluebird in her mirth;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And wild with wind and sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A treasurer of immortal days,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I roam the glorious world with praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hillsides and the woodland ways,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till earth and I are one.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FOREST_MOODS" id="FOREST_MOODS"></a>FOREST MOODS</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There is singing of birds in the deep wet woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the heart of the listening solitudes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pewees, and thrushes, and sparrows, not few,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the notes of their throats are true.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The thrush from the innermost ash takes on<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A tender dream of the treasured and gone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the sparrow singeth with pride and cheer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the might and light of the present and here.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There is shining of flowers in the deep wet woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the heart of the sensitive solitudes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The roseate bell and the lily are there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And every leaf of their sheaf is fair.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span><span class="i0">Careless and bold, without dream of woe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The trilliums scatter their flags snow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the pale wood-daffodil covers her face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Agloom with the doom of a sorrowful race.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_RETURN_OF_THE_YEAR" id="THE_RETURN_OF_THE_YEAR"></a>THE RETURN OF THE YEAR</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Again the warm bare earth, the noon<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That hangs upon her healing scars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The midnight round, the great red moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mother with her brood of stars,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The mist-rack and the wakening rain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Blown soft in many a forest way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The yellowing elm-trees, and again<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The blood-root in its sheath of gray.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The vesper-sparrow's song, the stress<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of yearning notes that gush and stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lyric joy, the tenderness,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And once again the dream! the dream!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A touch of far-off joy and power,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A something it is life to learn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes back to earth, and one short hour<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The glamours of the gods return.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This life's old mood and cult of care<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Falls smitten by an older truth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the gray world wins back to her<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The rapture of her vanished youth.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span><span class="i0">Dead thoughts revive, and he that heeds<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall hear, as by a spirit led,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A song among the golden reeds:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"The gods are vanished but not dead!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For one short hour; unseen yet near,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They haunt us, a forgotten mood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A glory upon mead and mere,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A magic in the leafless wood.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At morning we shall catch the glow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of Dian's quiver on the hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And somewhere in the glades I know<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That Pan is at his piping still.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FAVORITES_OF_PAN" id="FAVORITES_OF_PAN"></a>FAVORITES OF PAN</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Once, long ago, before the gods<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Had left this earth, by stream and forest glade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the first plough upturned the clinging sods,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or the lost shepherd strayed,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Often to the tired listener's ear<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There came at noonday or beneath the stars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sound, he knew not whence, so sweet and clear,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That all his aches and scars<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And every brooded bitterness,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fallen asunder from his soul took flight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like mist or darkness yielding to the press<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of an unnamed delight,—</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span><span class="i0">A sudden brightness of the heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A magic fire drawn down from Paradise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That rent the cloud with golden gleam apart,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And far before his eyes<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The loveliness and calm of earth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lay like a limitless dream remote and strange,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The joy, the strife, the triumph and the mirth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the enchanted change;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And so he followed the sweet sound,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till faith had traversed her appointed span,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And murmured as he pressed the sacred ground:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"It is the note of Pan!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now though no more by marsh or stream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or dewy forest sounds the secret reed—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For Pan is gone—Ah yet, the infinite dream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Still lives for them that heed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In April, when the turning year<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Regains its pensive youth, and a soft breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And amorous influence over marsh and mere<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dissolves the grasp of death,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To them that are in love with life,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wandering like children with untroubled eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far from the noise of cities and the strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Strange flute-like voices rise</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span><span class="i0">At noon and in the quiet of the night<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From every watery waste; and in that hour<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The same strange spell, the same unnamed delight,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Enfolds them in its power.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An old-world joyousness supreme,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The warmth and glow of an immortal balm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mood-touch of the gods, the endless dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The high lethean calm.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">They see, wide on the eternal way,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The services of earth, the life of man;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, listening to the magic cry they say:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"It is the note of Pan!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For, long ago, when the new strains<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of hostile hymns and conquering faiths grew keen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the old gods from their deserted fanes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fled silent and unseen,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So, too, the goat-foot Pan, not less<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sadly obedient to the mightier hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cut him new reeds, and in a sore distress<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Passed out from land to land;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And lingering by each haunt he knew,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of fount or sinuous stream or grassy marge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He set the syrinx to his lips, and blew<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A note divinely large;</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span><span class="i0">And all around him on the wet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cool earth the frogs came up, and with a smile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He took them in his hairy hands, and set<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His mouth to theirs awhile,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And blew into their velvet throats;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And ever from that hour the frogs repeat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The murmur of Pan's pipes, the notes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And answers strange and sweet;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And they that hear them are renewed<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By knowledge in some god-like touch conveyed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Entering again into the eternal mood,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wherein the world was made.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_MEADOW" id="THE_MEADOW"></a>THE MEADOW</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Here when the cloudless April days begin,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And the quaint crows flock thicker day by day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filling the forests with a pleasant din,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And the soiled snow creeps secretly away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes the small busy sparrow, primed with glee,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">First preacher in the naked wilderness,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Piping an end to all the long distress<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From every fence and every leafless tree.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now with soft slight and viewless artifice<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Winter's iron work is wondrously undone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In all the little hollows cored with ice<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The clear brown pools stand simmering in the sun,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Frail lucid worlds, upon whose tremulous floors<br /></span> +<span class="i4">All day the wandering water-bugs at will,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Shy mariners whose oars are never still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Voyage and dream about the heightening shores.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The bluebird, peeping from the gnarlèd thorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Prattles upon his frolic flute, or flings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In bounding flight across the golden morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">An azure gleam from off his splendid wings.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here the slim-pinioned swallows sweep and pass<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Down to the far-off river; the black crow<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With wise and wary visage to and fro<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Settles and stalks about the withered grass.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Here, when the murmurous May-day is half gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The watchful lark before my feet takes flight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wheeling to some lonelier field far on,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Drops with obstreperous cry; and here at night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the first star precedes the great red moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The shore-lark tinkles from the darkening field,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Somewhere, we know not, in the dusk concealed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His little creakling and continuous tune.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Here, too, the robins, lusty as of old,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Hunt the waste grass for forage, or prolong<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From every quarter of these fields the bold,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Blithe phrases of their never-finished song.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">The white-throat's distant descant with slow stress<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Note after note upon the noonday falls,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Filling the leisured air at intervals<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With his own mood of piercing pensiveness.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How often from this windy upland perch,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Mine eyes have seen the forest break in bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rose-red maple and the golden birch,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The dusty yellow of the elms, the gloom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the tall poplar hung with tasseled black;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Ah, I have watched, till eye and ear and brain<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Grew full of dreams as they, the moted plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun-steeped wood, the marsh-land at its back,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The valley where the river wheels and fills,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Yon city glimmering in its smoky shroud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And out at the last misty rim the hills<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Blue and far off and mounded like a cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And here the noisy rutted road that goes<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Down the slope yonder, flanked on either side<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With the smooth-furrowed fields flung black and wide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Patched with pale water sleeping in the rows.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So as I watched the crowded leaves expand,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The bloom break sheath, the summer's strength uprear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In earth's great mother's heart already planned<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The heaped and burgeoned plenty of the year,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Even as she from out her wintry cell<br /></span> +<span class="i4">My spirit also sprang to life anew,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And day by day as the spring's bounty grew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its conquering joy possessed me like a spell.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In reverie by day and midnight dream<br /></span> +<span class="i4">I sought these upland fields and walked apart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Musing on Nature, till my thought did seem<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To read the very secrets of her heart;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In mooded moments earnest and sublime<br /></span> +<span class="i4">I stored the themes of many a future song,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Whose substance should be Nature's, clear and strong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bound in a casket of majestic rhyme.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Brave bud-like plans that never reached the fruit,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Like hers our mother's who with every hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Easily replenished from the sleepless root,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Covers her bosom with fresh bud and flower;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet I was happy as young lovers be,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Who in the season of their passion's birth<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Deem that they have their utmost worship's worth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If love be near them, just to hear and see.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IN_MAY" id="IN_MAY"></a>IN MAY</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Grief was my master yesternight;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To-morrow I may grieve again;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But now along the windy plain<br /></span> +<span class="i6">The clouds have taken flight.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span><span class="i0">The sowers in the furrows go;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The lusty river brimmeth on;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The curtains from the hills are gone;<br /></span> +<span class="i6">The leaves are out; and lo,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The silvery distance of the day,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The light horizons, and between<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The glory of the perfect green,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">The tumult of the May.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The bobolinks at noonday sing<br /></span> +<span class="i4">More softly than the softest flute,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And lightlier than the lightest lute<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Their fairy tambours ring.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The roads far off are towered with dust;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The cherry-blooms are swept and thinned;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In yonder swaying elms the wind<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Is charging gust on gust.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But here there is no stir at all;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The ministers of sun and shadow<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Horde all the perfumes of the meadow<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Behind a grassy wall.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An infant rivulet wind-free<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Adown the guarded hollow sets,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Over whose brink the violets<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Are nodding peacefully.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span><span class="i0">From pool to pool it prattles by;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The flashing swallows dip and pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Above the tufted marish grass,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">And here at rest am I.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I care not for the old distress,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Nor if to-morrow bid me moan;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To-day is mine, and I have known<br /></span> +<span class="i6">An hour of blessedness.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LIFE_AND_NATURE" id="LIFE_AND_NATURE"></a>LIFE AND NATURE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I passed through the gates of the city,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The streets were strange and still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the doors of the open churches<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The organs were moaning shrill.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through the doors and the great high windows<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I heard the murmur of prayer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the sound of their solemn singing<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Streamed out on the sunlit air;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A sound of some great burden<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That lay on the world's dark breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the old, and the sick, and the lonely,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the weary that cried for rest.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span><span class="i0">I strayed through the midst of the city<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like one distracted or mad.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Oh, Life! Oh, Life!" I kept saying,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the very word seemed sad.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I passed through the gates of the city,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And I heard the small birds sing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I laid me down in the meadows<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Afar from the bell-ringing.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In the depth and the bloom of the meadows<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I lay on the earth's quiet breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The poplar fanned me with shadows,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the veery sang me to rest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Blue, blue was the heaven above me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the earth green at my feet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Oh, Life! Oh, Life!" I kept saying,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the very word seemed sweet.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WITH_THE_NIGHT" id="WITH_THE_NIGHT"></a>WITH THE NIGHT</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O doubts, dull passions, and base fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That harassed and oppressed the day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ye poor remorses and vain tears,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That shook this house of clay:</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span><span class="i0">All heaven to the western bars<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is glittering with the darker dawn;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here with the earth, the night, the stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ye have no place: begone!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="JUNE" id="JUNE"></a>JUNE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Long, long ago, it seems, this summer morn<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That pale-browed April passed with pensive tread<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Through the frore woods, and from its frost-bound bed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Woke the arbutus with her silver horn;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And now May, too, is fled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flower-crowned month, the merry laughing May,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With rosy feet and fingers dewy wet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leaving the woods and all cool gardens gay<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With tulips and the scented violet.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Gone are the wind-flower and the adder-tongue<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And the sad drooping bellwort, and no more<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The snowy trilliums crowd the forest's floor;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The purpling grasses are no longer young,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And summer's wide-set door<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the thronged hills and the broad panting earth<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Lets in the torrent of the later bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haytime, and harvest, and the after mirth,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The slow soft rain, the rushing thunder plume.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span><span class="i0">All day in garden alleys moist and dim,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The humid air is burdened with the rose;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In moss-deep woods the creamy orchid blows;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And now the vesper-sparrows' pealing hymn<br /></span> +<span class="i8">From every orchard close<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At eve comes flooding rich and silvery;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The daisies in great meadows swing and shine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with the wind a sound as of the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Roars in the maples and the topmost pine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">High in the hills the solitary thrush<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Tunes magically his music of fine dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In briary dells, by boulder-broken streams;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wide and far on nebulous fields aflush<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The mellow morning gleams.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The orange cone-flowers purple-bossed are there,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The meadow's bold-eyed gypsies deep of hue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And slender hawkweed tall and softly fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And rosy tops of fleabane veiled with dew.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So with thronged voices and unhasting flight<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The fervid hours with long return go by;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The far-heard hylas piping shrill and high<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tell the slow moments of the solemn night<br /></span> +<span class="i8">With unremitting cry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lustrous and large out of the gathering drouth<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The planets gleam; the baleful Scorpion</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Trails his dim fires along the droused south;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The silent world-incrusted round moves on.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And all the dim night long the moon's white beams<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Nestle deep down in every brooding tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And sleeping birds, touched with a silly glee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waken at midnight from their blissful dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And carol brokenly.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dim surging motions and uneasy dreads<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Scare the light slumber from men's busy eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And parted lovers on their restless beds<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Toss and yearn out, and cannot sleep for sighs.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oft have I striven, sweet month, to figure thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">As dreamers of old time were wont to feign,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In living form of flesh, and striven in vain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet when some sudden old-world mystery<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Of passion fired my brain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy shape hath flashed upon me like no dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Wandering with scented curls that heaped the breeze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or by the hollow of some reeded stream<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Sitting waist-deep in white anemones;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And even as I glimpsed thee thou wert gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A dream for mortal eyes too proudly coy,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Yet in thy place for subtle thought's employ<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The golden magic clung, a light that shone<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And filled me with thy joy.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Before me like a mist that streamed and fell<br /></span> +<span class="i4">All names and shapes of antique beauty passed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In garlanded procession with the swell<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of flutes between the beechen stems; and last,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I saw the Arcadian valley, the loved wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Alpheus stream divine, the sighing shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And through the cool green glades, awake once more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Psyche, the white-limbed goddess, still pursued,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Fleet-footed as of yore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The noonday ringing with her frighted peals,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Down the bright sward and through the reeds she ran,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Urged by the mountain echoes, at her heels<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The hot-blown cheeks and trampling feet of Pan.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="DISTANCE" id="DISTANCE"></a>DISTANCE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To the distance! Ah, the distance!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Blue and broad and dim!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Peace is not in burgh or meadow,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But beyond the rim.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Aye, beyond it, far beyond it;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Follow still my soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till this earth is lost in heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And thou feel'st the whole.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="THE_BIRD_AND_THE_HOUR" id="THE_BIRD_AND_THE_HOUR"></a>THE BIRD AND THE HOUR</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The sun looks over a little hill<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And floods the valley with gold—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">A torrent of gold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the hither field is green and still;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beyond it a cloud outrolled,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is glowing molten and bright;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And soon the hill, and the valley and all,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">With a quiet fall,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall be gathered into the night.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And yet a moment more,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Out of the silent wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As if from the closing door<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of another world and another lovelier mood,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hear'st thou the hermit pour—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">So sweet! so magical!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His golden music, ghostly beautiful.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="AFTER_RAIN" id="AFTER_RAIN"></a>AFTER RAIN</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For three whole days across the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In sullen packs that loomed and broke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With flying fringes dim as smoke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The columns of the rain went by;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At every hour the wind awoke;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The darkness passed upon the plain;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The great drops rattled at the pane.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now piped the wind, or far aloof<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell to a sough remote and dull;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all night long with rush and lull</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">The rain kept drumming on the roof:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I heard till ear and sense were full<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The clash or silence of the leaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The gurgle in the creaking eaves.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But when the fourth day came—at noon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The darkness and the rain were by;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sunward roofs were steaming dry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the world was flecked and strewn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With shadows from a fleecy sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The haymakers were forth and gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And every rillet laughed and shone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then, too, on me that loved so well<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world, despairing in her blight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Uplifted with her least delight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On me, as on the earth, there fell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">New happiness of mirth and might;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">I strode the valleys pied and still;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">I climbed upon the breezy hill.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I watched the gray hawk wheel and drop,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sole shadow on the shining world;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw the mountains clothed and curled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With forest ruffling to the top;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw the river's length unfurled,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Pale silver down the fruited plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Grown great and stately with the rain.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through miles of shadow and soft heat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where field and fallow, fence and tree,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Were all one world of greenery,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I heard the robin ringing sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sparrow piping silverly,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The thrushes at the forest's hem;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And as I went I sang with them.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CLOUD-BREAK" id="CLOUD-BREAK"></a>CLOUD-BREAK</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With a turn of his magical rod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That extended and suddenly shone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the round of his glory some god<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Looks forth and is gone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To the summit of heaven the clouds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are rolling aloft like steam;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's a break in their infinite shrouds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And below it a gleam.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the drift of the river a whiff<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes out from the blossoming shore;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the meadows are greening, as if<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They never were green before.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The islands are kindled with gold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And russet and emerald dye;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the interval waters outrolled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are more blue than the sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From my feet to the heart of the hills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The spirits of May intervene,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a vapor of azure distills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a breath on the opaline green.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span><span class="i0">Only a moment!—and then<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chill and the shadow decline,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the eyes of rejuvenate men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That were wide and divine.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_MOON-PATH" id="THE_MOON-PATH"></a>THE MOON-PATH</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The full, clear moon uprose and spread<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Her cold, pale splendor o'er the sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A light-strewn path that seemed to lead<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Outward into eternity.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Between the darkness and the gleam<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An old-world spell encompassed me:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Methought that in a godlike dream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I trod upon the sea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And lo! upon that glimmering road,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In shining companies unfurled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The trains of many a primal god,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The monsters of the elder world;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strange creatures that, with silver wings,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Scarce touched the ocean's thronging floor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The phantoms of old tales, and things<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose shapes are known no more.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Giants and demi-gods who once<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Were dwellers of the earth and sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they who from Deucalion's stones,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rose men without an infancy;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Beings on whose majestic lids<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Time's solemn secrets seemed to dwell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tritons and pale-limbed Nereids,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And forms of heaven and hell.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Some who were heroes long of yore,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When the great world was hale and young;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And some whose marble lips yet pour<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The murmur of an antique tongue;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sad queens, whose names are like soft moans,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose griefs were written up in gold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And some who on their silver thrones<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Were goddesses of old.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As if I had been dead indeed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And come into some after-land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw them pass me, and take heed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And touch me with each mighty hand;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And evermore a murmurous stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So beautiful they seemed to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not less than in a godlike dream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I trod the shining sea.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="COMFORT_OF_THE_FIELDS" id="COMFORT_OF_THE_FIELDS"></a>COMFORT OF THE FIELDS</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What would'st thou have for easement after grief,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When the rude world hath used thee with despite,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And care sits at thine elbow day and night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filching thy pleasures like a subtle thief?</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">To me, when life besets me in such wise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis sweetest to break forth, to drop the chain,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And grasp the freedom of this pleasant earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To roam in idleness and sober mirth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through summer airs and summer lands, and drain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The comfort of wide fields unto tired eyes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">By hills and waters, farms and solitudes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To wander by the day with wilful feet;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Through fielded valleys wide with yellowing wheat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Along gray roads that run between deep woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Murmurous and cool; through hallowed slopes of pine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where the long daylight dreams, unpierced, unstirred,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And only the rich-throated thrush is heard;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By lonely forest brooks that froth and shine<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In bouldered crannies buried in the hills;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By broken beeches tangled with wild vine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And log-strewn rivers murmurous with mills.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In upland pastures, sown with gold, and sweet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With the keen perfume of the ripening grass,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where wings of birds and filmy shadows pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spread thick as stars with shining marguerite;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To haunt old fences overgrown with brier,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Muffled in vines, and hawthorns, and wild cherries,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rank poisonous ivies, red-bunched elderberries,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">And pièd blossoms to the heart's desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gray mullein towering into yellow bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pink-tasseled milkweed, breathing dense perfume,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And swarthy vervain, tipped with violet fire.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To hear at eve the bleating of far flocks,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mud-hen's whistle from the marsh at morn;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To skirt with deafened ears and brain o'erborne<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some foam-filled rapid charging down its rocks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With iron roar of waters; far away<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Across wide-reeded meres, pensive with noon,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To hear the querulous outcry of the loon;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lie among deep rocks, and watch all day<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On liquid heights the snowy clouds melt by;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or hear from wood-capped mountain-brows the jay<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pierce the bright morning with his jibing cry.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To feast on summer sounds; the jolted wains,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The thrasher humming from the farm near by,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The prattling cricket's intermittent cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The locust's rattle from the sultry lanes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or in the shadow of some oaken spray,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To watch, as through a mist of light and dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The far-off hay-fields, where the dusty teams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drive round and round the lessening squares of hay,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And hear upon the wind, now loud, now low,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With drowsy cadence half a summer's day,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The clatter of the reapers come and go.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span><span class="i0">Far violet hills, horizons filmed with showers,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The murmur of cool streams, the forest's gloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The voices of the breathing grass, the hum<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of ancient gardens overbanked with flowers:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus, with a smile as golden as the dawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And cool fair fingers radiantly divine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mighty mother brings us in her hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For all tired eyes and foreheads pinched and wan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her restful cup, her beaker of bright wine:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Drink, and be filled, and ye shall understand!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="AT_THE_FERRY" id="AT_THE_FERRY"></a>AT THE FERRY</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On such a day the shrunken stream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Spends its last water and runs dry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clouds like far turrets in a dream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Stand baseless in the burning sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On such a day at every rod<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The toilers in the hay-field halt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With dripping brows, and the parched sod<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yields to the crushing foot like salt.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But here a little wind astir,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seen waterward in jetting lines,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From yonder hillside topped with fir<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Comes pungent with the breath of pines;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And here when all the noon hangs still,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">White-hot upon the city tiles,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A perfume and a wintry chill<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Breathe from the yellow lumber-piles.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span><span class="i0">And all day long there falls a blur<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of noises upon listless ears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rumble of the trams, the stir<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of barges at the clacking piers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The champ of wheels, the crash of steam,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And ever, without change or stay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The drone, as through a troubled dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of waters falling far away.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A tug-boat up the farther shore<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Half pants, half whistles, in her draught;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cadence of a creaking oar<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Falls drowsily; a corded raft<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Creeps slowly in the noonday gleam,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And wheresoe'er a shadow sleeps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The men lie by, or half a-dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Stand leaning at the idle sweeps.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And all day long in the quiet bay<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The eddying amber depths retard,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hold, as in a ring, at play,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The heavy saw-logs notched and scarred;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yonder between cape and shoal,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where the long currents swing and shift,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An aged punt-man with his pole<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is searching in the parted drift.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At moments from the distant glare<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The murmur of a railway steals<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round yonder jutting point the air<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is beaten with the puff of wheels;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">And here at hand an open mill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Strong clamor at perpetual drive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With changing chant, now hoarse, now shrill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Keeps dinning like a mighty hive.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A furnace over field and mead,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The rounding noon hangs hard and white;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the gathering heats recede<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The hollows of the Chelsea height;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But under all to one quiet tune,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A spirit in cool depths withdrawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With logs, and dust, and wrack bestrewn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The stately river journeys on.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I watch the swinging currents go<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Far down to where, enclosed and piled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The logs crowd, and the Gatineau<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Comes rushing from the northern wild.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I see the long low point, where close<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The shore-lines, and the waters end,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I watch the barges pass in rows<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That vanish at the tapering bend.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I see as at the noon's pale core—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A shadow that lifts clear and floats—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cabin'd village round the shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The landing and the fringe of boats;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faint films of smoke that curl and wreathe,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And upward with the like desire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The vast gray church that seems to breathe<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In heaven with its dreaming spire.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span><span class="i0">And there the last blue boundaries rise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That guard within their compass furled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This plot of earth: beyond them lies<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mystery of the echoing world;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And still my thought goes on, and yields<br /></span> +<span class="i2">New vision and new joy to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far peopled hills, and ancient fields,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And cities by the crested sea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I see no more the barges pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor mark the ripple round the pier,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the uproar, mass on mass,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Falls dead upon a vacant ear.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the tumult of the mills,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And all the city's sound and strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the waste, beyond the hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I look far out and dream of life.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SEPTEMBER" id="SEPTEMBER"></a>SEPTEMBER</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now hath the summer reached her golden close,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, lost amid her corn-fields, bright of soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scarcely perceives from her divine repose<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How near, how swift, the inevitable goal:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still, still, she smiles, though from her careless feet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The bounty and the fruitful strength are gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And through the soft long wondering days goes on<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The silent sere decadence sad and sweet.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span><span class="i0">The kingbird and the pensive thrush are fled,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Children of light, too fearful of the gloom;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun falls low, the secret word is said,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mouldering woods grow silent as the tomb;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even the fields have lost their sovereign grace,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The cone-flower and the marguerite; and no more,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Across the river's shadow-haunted floor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The paths of skimming swallows interlace.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Already in the outland wilderness<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The forests echo with unwonted dins;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In clamorous gangs the gathering woodmen press<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Northward, and the stern winter's toil begins.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Around the long low shanties, whose rough lines<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Break the sealed dreams of many an unnamed lake,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Already in the frost-clear morns awake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The crash and thunder of the falling pines.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Where the tilled earth, with all its fields set free,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Naked and yellow from the harvest lies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By many a loft and busy granary,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The hum and tumult of the thrashers rise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There the tanned farmers labor without slack,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till twilight deepens round the spouting mill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Feeding the loosened sheaves, or with fierce will,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pitching waist-deep upon the dusty stack.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span><span class="i0">Still a brief while, ere the old year quite pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Our wandering steps and wistful eyes shall greet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The leaf, the water, the beloved grass;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Still from these haunts and this accustomed seat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I see the wood-wrapt city, swept with light,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The blue long-shadowed distance, and, between,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The dotted farm-lands with their parcelled green,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dark pine forest and the watchful height.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I see the broad rough meadow stretched away<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Into the crystal sunshine, wastes of sod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Acres of withered vervain, purple-gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Branches of aster, groves of goldenrod;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yonder, toward the sunlit summit, strewn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With shadowy boulders, crowned and swathed with weed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Stand ranks of silken thistles, blown to seed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long silver fleeces shining like the noon.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In far-off russet corn-fields, where the dry<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gray shocks stand peaked and withering, half concealed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the rough earth, the orange pumpkins lie,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Full-ribbed; and in the windless pasture-field<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sleek red horses o'er the sun-warmed ground<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Stand pensively about in companies,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">While all around them from the motionless trees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The long clean shadows sleep without a sound.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span><span class="i0">Under cool elm-trees floats the distant stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Moveless as air; and o'er the vast warm earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fathomless daylight seems to stand and dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A liquid cool elixir—all its girth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bound with faint haze, a frail transparency,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose lucid purple barely veils and fills<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The utmost valleys and the thin last hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor mars one whit their perfect clarity.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thus without grief the golden days go by,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So soft we scarcely notice how they wend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And like a smile half happy, or a sigh,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The summer passes to her quiet end;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And soon, too soon, around the cumbered eaves<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sly frosts shall take the creepers by surprise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And through the wind-touched reddening woods shall rise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">October with the rain of ruined leaves.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="A_RE-ASSURANCE" id="A_RE-ASSURANCE"></a>A RE-ASSURANCE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With what doubting eyes, oh sparrow,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Thou regardest me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Underneath yon spray of yarrow,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Dipping cautiously.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fear me not, oh little sparrow,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Bathe and never fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For to me both pool and yarrow<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And thyself are dear.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="THE_POETS_POSSESSION" id="THE_POETS_POSSESSION"></a>THE POET'S POSSESSION</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Think not, oh master of the well-tilled field,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This earth is only thine; for after thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When all is sown and gathered and put by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes the grave poet with creative eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from these silent acres and clean plots,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bids with his wand the fancied after-yield,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A second tilth and second harvest, be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The crop of images and curious thoughts.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="AN_AUTUMN_LANDSCAPE" id="AN_AUTUMN_LANDSCAPE"></a>AN AUTUMN LANDSCAPE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No wind there is that either pipes or moans;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The fields are cold and still; the sky<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Is covered with a blue-gray sheet<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of motionless cloud; and at my feet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The river, curling softly by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whispers and dimples round its quiet gray stones.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Along the chill green slope that dips and heaves<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The road runs rough and silent, lined<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With plum-trees, misty and blue-gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And poplars pallid as the day,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In masses spectral, undefined,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pale greenish stems half hid in dry gray leaves.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And on beside the river's sober edge<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A long fresh field lies black. Beyond,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Low thickets gray and reddish stand,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i4">Stroked white with birch; and near at hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Over a little steel-smooth pond,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hang multitudes of thin and withering sedge.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Across a waste and solitary rise<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A ploughman urges his dull team,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A stooped gray figure with prone brow<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That plunges bending to the plough<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With strong, uneven steps. The stream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rings and re-echoes with his furious cries.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sometimes the lowing of a cow, long-drawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Comes from far off; and crows in strings<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Pass on the upper silences.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A flock of small gray goldfinches,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flown down with silvery twitterings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rustle among the birch-cones and are gone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This day the season seems like one that heeds,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With fixèd ear and lifted hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">All moods that yet are known on earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">All motions that have faintest birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If haply she may understand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The utmost inward sense of all her deeds.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IN_NOVEMBER" id="IN_NOVEMBER"></a>IN NOVEMBER</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With loitering step and quiet eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the low November sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I wandered in the woods, and found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A clearing, where the broken ground</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Was scattered with black stumps and briers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the old wreck of forest fires.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It was a bleak and sandy spot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, all about, the vacant plot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was peopled and inhabited<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By scores of mulleins long since dead.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A silent and forsaken brood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In that mute opening of the wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So shrivelled and so thin they were,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So gray, so haggard, and austere,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not plants at all they seemed to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But rather some spare company<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of hermit folk, who long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wandering in bodies to and fro,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had chanced upon this lonely way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rested thus, till death one day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surprised them at their compline prayer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And left them standing lifeless there.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There was no sound about the wood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save the wind's secret stir. I stood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among the mullein-stalks as still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if myself had grown to be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One of their sombre company,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A body without wish or will.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And as I stood, quite suddenly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down from a furrow in the sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun shone out a little space<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Across that silent sober place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over the sand heaps and brown sod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mulleins and dead goldenrod,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">And passed beyond the thickets gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lit the fallen leaves that lay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Level and deep within the wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A rustling yellow multitude.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And all around me the thin light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So sere, so melancholy bright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell like the half-reflected gleam<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or shadow of some former dream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A moment's golden revery<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poured out on every plant and tree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A semblance of weird joy, or less,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sort of spectral happiness;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I, too, standing idly there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With muffled hands in the chill air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Felt the warm glow about my feet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And shuddering betwixt cold and heat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drew my thoughts closer, like a cloak,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While something in my blood awoke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A nameless and unnatural cheer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A pleasure secret and austere.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BY_AN_AUTUMN_STREAM" id="BY_AN_AUTUMN_STREAM"></a>BY AN AUTUMN STREAM</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now overhead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the rivulet loiters and stops,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bittersweet hangs from the tops<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the alders and cherries<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its bunches of beautiful berries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Orange and red.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span><span class="i0">And the snowbirds flee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tossing up on the far brown field,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now flashing and now concealed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like fringes of spray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That vanish and gleam on the gray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Field of the sea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Flickering light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come the last of the leaves down borne,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And patches of pale white corn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the wind complain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the slow rustle of rain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Noticed by night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Withered and thinned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sentinel mullein looms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the pale gray shadowy plumes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the goldenrod;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the milkweed opens its pod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tempting the wind.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Aloft on the hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A cloudrift opens and shines<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through a break in its gorget of pines,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And it dreams at my feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a sad, silvery sheet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Utterly still.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All things that be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seem plunged into silence, distraught,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By some stern, some necessitous thought:</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">It wraps and enthralls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Marsh, meadow, and forest; and falls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Also on me.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SNOWBIRDS" id="SNOWBIRDS"></a>SNOWBIRDS</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Along the narrow sandy height<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I watch them swiftly come and go,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Or round the leafless wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like flurries of wind-driven snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Revolving in perpetual flight,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A changing multitude.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nearer and nearer still they sway,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, scattering in a circled sweep,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Rush down without a sound;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And now I see them peer and peep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Across yon level bleak and gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Searching the frozen ground,—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Until a little wind upheaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And makes a sudden rustling there,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And then they drop their play,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flash up into the sunless air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And like a flight of silver leaves<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Swirl round and sweep away.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="SNOW" id="SNOW"></a>SNOW</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">White are the far-off plains, and white<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The fading forests grow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wind dies out along the height,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And denser still the snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gathering weight on roof and tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Falls down scarce audibly.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The road before me smooths and fills<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Apace, and all about<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fences dwindle, and the hills<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Are blotted slowly out;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The naked trees loom spectrally<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Into the dim white sky.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The meadows and far-sheeted streams<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Lie still without a sound;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like some soft minister of dreams<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The snow-fall hoods me round;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In wood and water, earth and air,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A silence everywhere.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Save when at lonely intervals<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Some farmer's sleigh, urged on,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With rustling runners and sharp bells,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Swings by me and is gone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or from the empty waste I hear<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A sound remote and clear;</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span><span class="i0">The barking of a dog, or call<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To cattle, sharply pealed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Borne echoing from some wayside stall<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Or barnyard far a-field;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then all is silent, and the snow<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Falls, settling soft and slow.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The evening deepens, and the gray<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Folds closer earth and sky;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world seems shrouded far away;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Its noises sleep, and I,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As secret as yon buried stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Plod dumbly on, and dream.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SUNSET" id="SUNSET"></a>SUNSET</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">From this windy bridge at rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In some former curious hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We have watched the city's hue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All along the orange west,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cupola and pointed tower,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Darken into solid blue.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tho' the biting north wind breaks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full across this drifted hold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let us stand with icèd cheeks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Watching westward as of old;</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span><span class="i0">Past the violet mountain-head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the farthest fringe of pine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where far off the purple-red<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Narrows to a dusky line,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the last pale splendors die<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slowly from the olive sky;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Till the thin clouds wear away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into threads of purple-gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the sudden stars between<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brighten in the pallid green;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Till above the spacious east,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slow returnèd one by one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like pale prisoners released<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the dungeons of the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Capella and her train appear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the glittering Charioteer;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Till the rounded moon shall grow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great above the eastern snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shining into burnished gold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the silver earth outrolled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the misty yellow light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall take on the width of night.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="WINTER-STORE" id="WINTER-STORE"></a>WINTER-STORE</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Subtly conscious, all awake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let us clear our eyes, and break<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the cloudy chrysalis,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See the wonder as it is.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down a narrow alley, blind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Touch and vision, heart and mind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turned sharply inward, still we plod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till the calmly smiling god<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leaves us, and our spirits grow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More thin, more acrid, as we go.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Creeping by the sullen wall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We forego the power to see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The threads that bind us to the All,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God or the Immensity;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereof on the eternal road<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man is but a passing mode.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Too blind we are, too little see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the magic pageantry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Every minute, every hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the cloudflake to the flower,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forever old, forever strange,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Issuing in perpetual change<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the rainbow gates of Time.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But he who through this common air<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surely knows the great and fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What is lovely, what sublime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Becomes in an increasing span,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One with earth and one with man,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">One, despite these mortal scars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the planets and the stars;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Nature from her holy place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bending with unveilèd face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fills him in her divine employ<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With her own majestic joy.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Up the fielded slopes at morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where light wefts of shadow pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Films upon the bending corn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall sweep the purple grass.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sun-crowned heights and mossy woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the outer solitudes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mountain-valleys, dim with pine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall be home and haunt of mine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall search in crannied hollows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the sunlight scarcely follows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the secret forest brook<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Murmurs, and from nook to nook<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forever downward curls and cools,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Frothing in the bouldered pools.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Many a noon shall find me laid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the pungent balsam shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where sharp breezes spring and shiver<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On some deep rough-coasted river,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the plangent waters come,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amber-hued and streaked with foam;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where beneath the sunburnt hills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All day long the crowded mills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With remorseless champ and scream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Overlord the sluicing stream,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">And the rapids' iron roar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hammers at the forest's core;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where corded rafts creep slowly on,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glittering in the noonday sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the tawny river-dogs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shepherding the branded logs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bind and heave with cadenced cry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the blackened tugs go by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Panting hard and straining slow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laboring at the weighty tow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flat-nosed barges all in trim,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Creeping in long cumbrous line,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loaded to the water's brim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the clean, cool-scented pine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Perhaps in some low meadow-land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stretching wide on either hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall see the belted bees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rocking with the tricksy breeze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the spirèd meadow-sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or with eager trampling feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Burrowing in the boneset blooms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Treading out the dry perfumes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where sun-hot hay-fields newly mown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Climb the hillside ruddy brown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall see the haymakers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the noonday scarcely stirs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brown of neck and booted gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tossing up the rustling hay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the hay-racks bend and rock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As they take each scented cock,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Jolting over dip and rise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the wavering butterflies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the spaces brown and bare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Light and wander here and there.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I shall stray by many a stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the half-shut lilies gleam.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Napping out the sultry days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the quiet secluded bays;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the tasseled rushes tower,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the purple pickerel-flower.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the floating dragon-fly—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Azure glint and crystal gleam—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Watches o'er the burnished stream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With his eye of ebony;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the bull-frog lolls at rest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On his float of lily-leaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the swaying water weaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And distends his yellow breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lowing out from shore to shore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a hollow vibrant roar;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the softest wind that blows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As it lightly comes and goes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the jungled river meads,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stirs a whisper in the reeds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wakes the crowded bull-rushes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From their stately reveries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flashing through their long-leaved hordes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a brandishing of swords;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There, too, the frost-like arrow-flowers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tremble to the golden core,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Children of enchanted hours,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whom the rustling river bore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the night's bewildered noon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Woven of water and the moon.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I shall hear the grasshoppers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the parched grass rehearse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with drowsy note prolong<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Evermore the same thin song.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall hear the crickets tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stories by the humming well,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mark the locust, with quaint eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Caper in his cloak of gray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a jester in disguise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rattling by the dusty way.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I shall dream by upland fences,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the season's wealth condenses<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over many a weedy wreck,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wild, uncared-for, desert places,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That sovereign Beauty loves to deck<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With her softest, dearest graces.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There the long year dreams in quiet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the summer's strength runs riot.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall I not remember these,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deep in winter reveries?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Berried brier and thistle-bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And milkweed with its dense perfume;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slender vervain towering up<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a many-branchèd cup,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a candlestick, each spire</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Kindled with a violet fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Matted creepers and wild cherries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Purple-bunchèd elderberries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on scanty plots of sod<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Groves of branchy goldenrod.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What though autumn mornings now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Winterward with glittering brow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stiffen in the silver grass;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what though robins flock and pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With subdued and sober call,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the old year's funeral;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though October's crimson leaves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rustle at the gusty door,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the tempest round the eaves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alternate with pipe and roar;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sit, as erst, unharmed, secure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Conscious that my store is sure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whatsoe'er the fencèd fields,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or the untilled forest yields<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of unhurt remembrances,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or thoughts, far-glimpsed, half-followed, these<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have reaped and laid away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A treasure of unwinnowed grain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the garner packed and gray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gathered without toil or strain.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And when the darker days shall come,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the fields are white and dumb;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When our fires are half in vain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the crystal starlight weaves</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Mockeries of summer leaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pictured on the icy pane;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the high aurora gleams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far above the Arctic streams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a line of shifting spears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the broad pine-circled meres,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glimmering in that spectral light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thunder through the northern night;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then within the bolted door<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall con my summer store;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though the fences scarcely show<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Black above the drifted snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though the icy sweeping wind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whistle in the empty tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Safe within the sheltered mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall feed on memory.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet across the windy night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes upon its wings a cry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fashioned forms and modes take flight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a vision sad and high<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the laboring world down there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the lights burn red and warm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pricks my soul with sudden stare,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glowing through the veils of storm.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the city yonder sleep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those who smile and those who weep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those whose lips are set with care,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those whose brows are smooth and fair;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Mourners whom the dawning light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall grapple with an old distress;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lovers folded at midnight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In their bridal happiness;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pale watchers by belovèd beds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fallen a-drowse with nodding heads,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whom sleep captured by surprise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the circles round their eyes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Maidens with quiet-taken breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dreaming of enchanted bowers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old men with the mask of death;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Little children soft as flowers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those who wake wild-eyed and start<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In some madness of the heart;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those whose lips and brows of stone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Evil thoughts have graven upon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shade by shade and line by line,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Refashioning what was once divine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All these sleep, and through the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes a passion and a cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a blind sorrow and a might,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know not whence, I know not why,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A something I cannot control,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A nameless hunger of the soul.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It holds me fast. In vain, in vain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I remember how of old<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw the ruddy race of men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the glittering world outrolled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gay-smiling multitude,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">All immortal, all divine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Treading in a wreathèd line<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By a pathway through a wood.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_SUN_CUP" id="THE_SUN_CUP"></a>THE SUN CUP</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The earth is the cup of the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That he filleth at morning with wine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the warm, strong wine of his might<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the vintage of gold and of light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fills it, and makes it divine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And at night when his journey is done,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the gate of his radiant hall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He setteth his lips to the brim,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a long last look of his eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lifts it and draineth it dry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drains till he leaveth it all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Empty and hollow and dim.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And then, as he passes to sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still full of the feats that he did,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long ago in Olympian wars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He closes it down with the sweep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of its slow-turning luminous lid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its cover of darkness and stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wrought once by Hephæstus of old<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With violet and vastness and gold.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="width: 50%; margin: auto; margin-bottom: 40px;">The first edition of this book +consists of five hundred copies, +printed by the Boston Engraving +and McIndoe Printing Company, +Boston, during March, 1896, with +fifty additional copies on Arnold +paper.</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12664 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/12664-h/images/tp.png b/12664-h/images/tp.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b931df --- /dev/null +++ b/12664-h/images/tp.png diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lyrics of Earth + +Author: Archibald Lampman + +Release Date: July 11, 2007 [EBook #12664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYRICS OF EARTH *** + + + + +<b>This htm version produced by Thierry Alberto, Jana Srna and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced +from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for +Historical Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org))</b> + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1 style="margin-top: 80px;">LYRICS OF EARTH</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 101px;"> +<img src="images/tp.png" style="margin-top: 40px; margin-bottom: 40px;" width="101" height="150" alt="Printer's Colophon" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center">BOSTON</p> + +<p class="center">COPELAND AND DAY</p> + +<p class="center" style="font-size: smaller;">MDCCCXCV</p> + + +<p class="center" style="margin-top: 40px; margin-bottom: 80px;">Copyright by Copeland and Day, 1895.</p> + + + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<table summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr> +<td>The Sweetness of Life</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_SWEETNESS_OF_LIFE">5</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>God-speed to the Snow</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#GOD-SPEED_TO_THE_SNOW">7</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>April in the Hills</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#APRIL_IN_THE_HILLS">8</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Forest Moods</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#FOREST_MOODS">9</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td style="padding-right: 80px;">The Return of the Year</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_RETURN_OF_THE_YEAR">10</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Favorites of Pan</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#FAVORITES_OF_PAN">11</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>The Meadow</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_MEADOW">14</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>In May</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#IN_MAY">17</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Life and Nature</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#LIFE_AND_NATURE">19</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>With the Night</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#WITH_THE_NIGHT">20</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>June</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#JUNE">21</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Distance</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#DISTANCE">24</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>The Bird and the Hour</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_BIRD_AND_THE_HOUR">25</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>After Rain</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#AFTER_RAIN">25</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Cloud-break</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#CLOUD-BREAK">27</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>The Moon-path</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_MOON-PATH">28</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Comfort of the Fields</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#COMFORT_OF_THE_FIELDS">29</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>At the Ferry</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#AT_THE_FERRY">32</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>September</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#SEPTEMBER">35</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>A Re-assurance</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#A_RE-ASSURANCE">38</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>The Poet's Possession</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_POETS_POSSESSION">39</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>An Autumn Landscape</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#AN_AUTUMN_LANDSCAPE">39</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>In November</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#IN_NOVEMBER">40</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>By an Autumn Stream</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#BY_AN_AUTUMN_STREAM">42</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Snowbirds</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#SNOWBIRDS">44</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Snow</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#SNOW">45</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Sunset</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#SUNSET">46</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Winter-store</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#WINTER-STORE">48</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>The Sun Cup</td> +<td class="right"><a href="#THE_SUN_CUP">56</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>TO MY MOTHER</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Mother, to whose valiant will,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Battling long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What the heaping years fulfil,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Light and song, I owe;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Send my little book a-field,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fronting praise or blame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the shining flag and shield<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of your name.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="THE_SWEETNESS_OF_LIFE" id="THE_SWEETNESS_OF_LIFE"></a>THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It fell on a day I was happy,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the winds, the concave sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flowers and the beasts in the meadow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seemed happy even as I;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I stretched my hands to the meadow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the bird, the beast, the tree:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Why are ye all so happy?"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I cried, and they answered me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What sayest thou, Oh meadow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That stretches so wide, so far,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That none can say how many<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thy misty marguerites are?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what say ye, red roses,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That o'er the sun-blanched wall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From your high black-shadowed trellis<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like flame or blood-drops fall?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">"We are born, we are reared, and we linger<br /></span> +<span class="i6">A various space and die;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">We dream, and are bright and happy,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">But we cannot answer why."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What sayest thou, Oh shadow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That from the dreaming hill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All down the broadening valley<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Liest so sharp and still?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thou, Oh murmuring brooklet,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whereby in the noonday gleam</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">The loosestrife burns like ruby,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the branchèd asters dream?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">"We are born, we are reared, and we linger<br /></span> +<span class="i6">A various space and die;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">We dream and are very happy,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">But we cannot answer why."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And then of myself I questioned,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That like a ghost the while<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stood from me and calmly answered,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With slow and curious smile:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Thou art born as the flowers, and wilt linger<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thine own short space and die;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou dream'st and art strangely happy,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But thou canst not answer why."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="GOD-SPEED_TO_THE_SNOW" id="GOD-SPEED_TO_THE_SNOW"></a>GOD-SPEED TO THE SNOW</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">March is slain; the keen winds fly;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nothing more is thine to do;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">April kisses thee good-bye;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou must haste and follow too;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silent friend that guarded well<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Withered things to make us glad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shyest friend that could not tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Half the kindly thought he had.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haste thee, speed thee, O kind snow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down the dripping valleys go,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the fields and gleaming meadows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the slaying hours behold thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the forests whose slim shadows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brown and leafless cannot fold thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the cedar lands aflame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With gold light that cleaves and quivers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Songs that winter may not tame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drone of pines and laugh of rivers.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May thy passing joyous be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To thy father, the great sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the sun is getting stronger;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth hath need of thee no longer;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Go, kind snow, God-speed to thee!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="APRIL_IN_THE_HILLS" id="APRIL_IN_THE_HILLS"></a>APRIL IN THE HILLS</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To-day the world is wide and fair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With sunny fields of lucid air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And waters dancing everywhere;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The snow is almost gone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The noon is builded high with light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And over heaven's liquid height,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In steady fleets serene and white,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The happy clouds go on.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The channels run, the bare earth steams,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And every hollow rings and gleams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With jetting falls and dashing streams;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The rivers burst and fill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fields are full of little lakes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when the romping wind awakes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The water ruffles blue and shakes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the pines roar on the hill.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The crows go by, a noisy throng;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">About the meadows all day long<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The shore-lark drops his brittle song;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And up the leafless tree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nut-hatch runs, and nods, and clings;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bluebird dips with flashing wings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The robin flutes, the sparrow sings,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the swallows float and flee.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I break the spirit's cloudy bands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A wanderer in enchanted lands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I feel the sun upon my hands;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i2">And far from care and strife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The broad earth bids me forth. I rise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With lifted brow and upward eyes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I bathe my spirit in blue skies,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And taste the springs of life.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I feel the tumult of new birth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I waken with the wakening earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I match the bluebird in her mirth;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And wild with wind and sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A treasurer of immortal days,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I roam the glorious world with praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hillsides and the woodland ways,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till earth and I are one.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FOREST_MOODS" id="FOREST_MOODS"></a>FOREST MOODS</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There is singing of birds in the deep wet woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the heart of the listening solitudes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pewees, and thrushes, and sparrows, not few,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the notes of their throats are true.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The thrush from the innermost ash takes on<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A tender dream of the treasured and gone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the sparrow singeth with pride and cheer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the might and light of the present and here.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There is shining of flowers in the deep wet woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the heart of the sensitive solitudes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The roseate bell and the lily are there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And every leaf of their sheaf is fair.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span><span class="i0">Careless and bold, without dream of woe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The trilliums scatter their flags snow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the pale wood-daffodil covers her face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Agloom with the doom of a sorrowful race.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_RETURN_OF_THE_YEAR" id="THE_RETURN_OF_THE_YEAR"></a>THE RETURN OF THE YEAR</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Again the warm bare earth, the noon<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That hangs upon her healing scars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The midnight round, the great red moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mother with her brood of stars,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The mist-rack and the wakening rain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Blown soft in many a forest way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The yellowing elm-trees, and again<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The blood-root in its sheath of gray.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The vesper-sparrow's song, the stress<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of yearning notes that gush and stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lyric joy, the tenderness,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And once again the dream! the dream!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A touch of far-off joy and power,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A something it is life to learn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes back to earth, and one short hour<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The glamours of the gods return.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This life's old mood and cult of care<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Falls smitten by an older truth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the gray world wins back to her<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The rapture of her vanished youth.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span><span class="i0">Dead thoughts revive, and he that heeds<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall hear, as by a spirit led,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A song among the golden reeds:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"The gods are vanished but not dead!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For one short hour; unseen yet near,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They haunt us, a forgotten mood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A glory upon mead and mere,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A magic in the leafless wood.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At morning we shall catch the glow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of Dian's quiver on the hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And somewhere in the glades I know<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That Pan is at his piping still.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FAVORITES_OF_PAN" id="FAVORITES_OF_PAN"></a>FAVORITES OF PAN</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Once, long ago, before the gods<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Had left this earth, by stream and forest glade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the first plough upturned the clinging sods,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or the lost shepherd strayed,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Often to the tired listener's ear<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There came at noonday or beneath the stars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sound, he knew not whence, so sweet and clear,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That all his aches and scars<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And every brooded bitterness,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fallen asunder from his soul took flight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like mist or darkness yielding to the press<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of an unnamed delight,—</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span><span class="i0">A sudden brightness of the heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A magic fire drawn down from Paradise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That rent the cloud with golden gleam apart,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And far before his eyes<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The loveliness and calm of earth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lay like a limitless dream remote and strange,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The joy, the strife, the triumph and the mirth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the enchanted change;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And so he followed the sweet sound,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till faith had traversed her appointed span,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And murmured as he pressed the sacred ground:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"It is the note of Pan!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now though no more by marsh or stream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or dewy forest sounds the secret reed—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For Pan is gone—Ah yet, the infinite dream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Still lives for them that heed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In April, when the turning year<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Regains its pensive youth, and a soft breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And amorous influence over marsh and mere<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dissolves the grasp of death,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To them that are in love with life,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wandering like children with untroubled eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far from the noise of cities and the strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Strange flute-like voices rise</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span><span class="i0">At noon and in the quiet of the night<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From every watery waste; and in that hour<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The same strange spell, the same unnamed delight,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Enfolds them in its power.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An old-world joyousness supreme,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The warmth and glow of an immortal balm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mood-touch of the gods, the endless dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The high lethean calm.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">They see, wide on the eternal way,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The services of earth, the life of man;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, listening to the magic cry they say:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"It is the note of Pan!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For, long ago, when the new strains<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of hostile hymns and conquering faiths grew keen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the old gods from their deserted fanes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fled silent and unseen,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So, too, the goat-foot Pan, not less<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sadly obedient to the mightier hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cut him new reeds, and in a sore distress<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Passed out from land to land;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And lingering by each haunt he knew,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of fount or sinuous stream or grassy marge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He set the syrinx to his lips, and blew<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A note divinely large;</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span><span class="i0">And all around him on the wet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cool earth the frogs came up, and with a smile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He took them in his hairy hands, and set<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His mouth to theirs awhile,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And blew into their velvet throats;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And ever from that hour the frogs repeat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The murmur of Pan's pipes, the notes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And answers strange and sweet;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And they that hear them are renewed<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By knowledge in some god-like touch conveyed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Entering again into the eternal mood,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wherein the world was made.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_MEADOW" id="THE_MEADOW"></a>THE MEADOW</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Here when the cloudless April days begin,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And the quaint crows flock thicker day by day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filling the forests with a pleasant din,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And the soiled snow creeps secretly away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes the small busy sparrow, primed with glee,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">First preacher in the naked wilderness,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Piping an end to all the long distress<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From every fence and every leafless tree.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now with soft slight and viewless artifice<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Winter's iron work is wondrously undone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In all the little hollows cored with ice<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The clear brown pools stand simmering in the sun,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Frail lucid worlds, upon whose tremulous floors<br /></span> +<span class="i4">All day the wandering water-bugs at will,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Shy mariners whose oars are never still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Voyage and dream about the heightening shores.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The bluebird, peeping from the gnarlèd thorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Prattles upon his frolic flute, or flings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In bounding flight across the golden morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">An azure gleam from off his splendid wings.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here the slim-pinioned swallows sweep and pass<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Down to the far-off river; the black crow<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With wise and wary visage to and fro<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Settles and stalks about the withered grass.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Here, when the murmurous May-day is half gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The watchful lark before my feet takes flight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wheeling to some lonelier field far on,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Drops with obstreperous cry; and here at night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the first star precedes the great red moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The shore-lark tinkles from the darkening field,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Somewhere, we know not, in the dusk concealed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His little creakling and continuous tune.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Here, too, the robins, lusty as of old,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Hunt the waste grass for forage, or prolong<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From every quarter of these fields the bold,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Blithe phrases of their never-finished song.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">The white-throat's distant descant with slow stress<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Note after note upon the noonday falls,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Filling the leisured air at intervals<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With his own mood of piercing pensiveness.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How often from this windy upland perch,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Mine eyes have seen the forest break in bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rose-red maple and the golden birch,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The dusty yellow of the elms, the gloom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the tall poplar hung with tasseled black;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Ah, I have watched, till eye and ear and brain<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Grew full of dreams as they, the moted plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun-steeped wood, the marsh-land at its back,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The valley where the river wheels and fills,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Yon city glimmering in its smoky shroud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And out at the last misty rim the hills<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Blue and far off and mounded like a cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And here the noisy rutted road that goes<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Down the slope yonder, flanked on either side<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With the smooth-furrowed fields flung black and wide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Patched with pale water sleeping in the rows.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So as I watched the crowded leaves expand,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The bloom break sheath, the summer's strength uprear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In earth's great mother's heart already planned<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The heaped and burgeoned plenty of the year,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Even as she from out her wintry cell<br /></span> +<span class="i4">My spirit also sprang to life anew,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And day by day as the spring's bounty grew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its conquering joy possessed me like a spell.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In reverie by day and midnight dream<br /></span> +<span class="i4">I sought these upland fields and walked apart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Musing on Nature, till my thought did seem<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To read the very secrets of her heart;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In mooded moments earnest and sublime<br /></span> +<span class="i4">I stored the themes of many a future song,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Whose substance should be Nature's, clear and strong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bound in a casket of majestic rhyme.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Brave bud-like plans that never reached the fruit,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Like hers our mother's who with every hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Easily replenished from the sleepless root,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Covers her bosom with fresh bud and flower;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet I was happy as young lovers be,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Who in the season of their passion's birth<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Deem that they have their utmost worship's worth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If love be near them, just to hear and see.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IN_MAY" id="IN_MAY"></a>IN MAY</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Grief was my master yesternight;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To-morrow I may grieve again;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But now along the windy plain<br /></span> +<span class="i6">The clouds have taken flight.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span><span class="i0">The sowers in the furrows go;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The lusty river brimmeth on;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The curtains from the hills are gone;<br /></span> +<span class="i6">The leaves are out; and lo,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The silvery distance of the day,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The light horizons, and between<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The glory of the perfect green,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">The tumult of the May.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The bobolinks at noonday sing<br /></span> +<span class="i4">More softly than the softest flute,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And lightlier than the lightest lute<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Their fairy tambours ring.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The roads far off are towered with dust;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The cherry-blooms are swept and thinned;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In yonder swaying elms the wind<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Is charging gust on gust.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But here there is no stir at all;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The ministers of sun and shadow<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Horde all the perfumes of the meadow<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Behind a grassy wall.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An infant rivulet wind-free<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Adown the guarded hollow sets,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Over whose brink the violets<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Are nodding peacefully.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span><span class="i0">From pool to pool it prattles by;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The flashing swallows dip and pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Above the tufted marish grass,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">And here at rest am I.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I care not for the old distress,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Nor if to-morrow bid me moan;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To-day is mine, and I have known<br /></span> +<span class="i6">An hour of blessedness.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LIFE_AND_NATURE" id="LIFE_AND_NATURE"></a>LIFE AND NATURE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I passed through the gates of the city,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The streets were strange and still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the doors of the open churches<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The organs were moaning shrill.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through the doors and the great high windows<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I heard the murmur of prayer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the sound of their solemn singing<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Streamed out on the sunlit air;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A sound of some great burden<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That lay on the world's dark breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the old, and the sick, and the lonely,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the weary that cried for rest.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span><span class="i0">I strayed through the midst of the city<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like one distracted or mad.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Oh, Life! Oh, Life!" I kept saying,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the very word seemed sad.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I passed through the gates of the city,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And I heard the small birds sing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I laid me down in the meadows<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Afar from the bell-ringing.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In the depth and the bloom of the meadows<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I lay on the earth's quiet breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The poplar fanned me with shadows,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the veery sang me to rest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Blue, blue was the heaven above me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the earth green at my feet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Oh, Life! Oh, Life!" I kept saying,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the very word seemed sweet.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WITH_THE_NIGHT" id="WITH_THE_NIGHT"></a>WITH THE NIGHT</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O doubts, dull passions, and base fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That harassed and oppressed the day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ye poor remorses and vain tears,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That shook this house of clay:</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span><span class="i0">All heaven to the western bars<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is glittering with the darker dawn;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here with the earth, the night, the stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ye have no place: begone!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="JUNE" id="JUNE"></a>JUNE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Long, long ago, it seems, this summer morn<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That pale-browed April passed with pensive tread<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Through the frore woods, and from its frost-bound bed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Woke the arbutus with her silver horn;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And now May, too, is fled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flower-crowned month, the merry laughing May,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With rosy feet and fingers dewy wet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leaving the woods and all cool gardens gay<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With tulips and the scented violet.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Gone are the wind-flower and the adder-tongue<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And the sad drooping bellwort, and no more<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The snowy trilliums crowd the forest's floor;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The purpling grasses are no longer young,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And summer's wide-set door<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the thronged hills and the broad panting earth<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Lets in the torrent of the later bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haytime, and harvest, and the after mirth,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The slow soft rain, the rushing thunder plume.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span><span class="i0">All day in garden alleys moist and dim,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The humid air is burdened with the rose;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In moss-deep woods the creamy orchid blows;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And now the vesper-sparrows' pealing hymn<br /></span> +<span class="i8">From every orchard close<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At eve comes flooding rich and silvery;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The daisies in great meadows swing and shine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with the wind a sound as of the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Roars in the maples and the topmost pine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">High in the hills the solitary thrush<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Tunes magically his music of fine dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In briary dells, by boulder-broken streams;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wide and far on nebulous fields aflush<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The mellow morning gleams.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The orange cone-flowers purple-bossed are there,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The meadow's bold-eyed gypsies deep of hue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And slender hawkweed tall and softly fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And rosy tops of fleabane veiled with dew.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So with thronged voices and unhasting flight<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The fervid hours with long return go by;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The far-heard hylas piping shrill and high<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tell the slow moments of the solemn night<br /></span> +<span class="i8">With unremitting cry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lustrous and large out of the gathering drouth<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The planets gleam; the baleful Scorpion</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Trails his dim fires along the droused south;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The silent world-incrusted round moves on.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And all the dim night long the moon's white beams<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Nestle deep down in every brooding tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And sleeping birds, touched with a silly glee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waken at midnight from their blissful dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And carol brokenly.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dim surging motions and uneasy dreads<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Scare the light slumber from men's busy eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And parted lovers on their restless beds<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Toss and yearn out, and cannot sleep for sighs.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oft have I striven, sweet month, to figure thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">As dreamers of old time were wont to feign,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In living form of flesh, and striven in vain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet when some sudden old-world mystery<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Of passion fired my brain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy shape hath flashed upon me like no dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Wandering with scented curls that heaped the breeze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or by the hollow of some reeded stream<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Sitting waist-deep in white anemones;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And even as I glimpsed thee thou wert gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A dream for mortal eyes too proudly coy,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Yet in thy place for subtle thought's employ<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The golden magic clung, a light that shone<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And filled me with thy joy.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Before me like a mist that streamed and fell<br /></span> +<span class="i4">All names and shapes of antique beauty passed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In garlanded procession with the swell<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of flutes between the beechen stems; and last,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I saw the Arcadian valley, the loved wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Alpheus stream divine, the sighing shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And through the cool green glades, awake once more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Psyche, the white-limbed goddess, still pursued,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Fleet-footed as of yore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The noonday ringing with her frighted peals,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Down the bright sward and through the reeds she ran,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Urged by the mountain echoes, at her heels<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The hot-blown cheeks and trampling feet of Pan.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="DISTANCE" id="DISTANCE"></a>DISTANCE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To the distance! Ah, the distance!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Blue and broad and dim!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Peace is not in burgh or meadow,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But beyond the rim.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Aye, beyond it, far beyond it;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Follow still my soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till this earth is lost in heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And thou feel'st the whole.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="THE_BIRD_AND_THE_HOUR" id="THE_BIRD_AND_THE_HOUR"></a>THE BIRD AND THE HOUR</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The sun looks over a little hill<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And floods the valley with gold—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">A torrent of gold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the hither field is green and still;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beyond it a cloud outrolled,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is glowing molten and bright;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And soon the hill, and the valley and all,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">With a quiet fall,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall be gathered into the night.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And yet a moment more,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Out of the silent wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As if from the closing door<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of another world and another lovelier mood,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hear'st thou the hermit pour—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">So sweet! so magical!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His golden music, ghostly beautiful.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="AFTER_RAIN" id="AFTER_RAIN"></a>AFTER RAIN</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For three whole days across the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In sullen packs that loomed and broke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With flying fringes dim as smoke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The columns of the rain went by;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At every hour the wind awoke;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The darkness passed upon the plain;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The great drops rattled at the pane.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now piped the wind, or far aloof<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell to a sough remote and dull;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all night long with rush and lull</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">The rain kept drumming on the roof:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I heard till ear and sense were full<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The clash or silence of the leaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The gurgle in the creaking eaves.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But when the fourth day came—at noon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The darkness and the rain were by;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sunward roofs were steaming dry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the world was flecked and strewn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With shadows from a fleecy sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The haymakers were forth and gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And every rillet laughed and shone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then, too, on me that loved so well<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world, despairing in her blight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Uplifted with her least delight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On me, as on the earth, there fell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">New happiness of mirth and might;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">I strode the valleys pied and still;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">I climbed upon the breezy hill.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I watched the gray hawk wheel and drop,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sole shadow on the shining world;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw the mountains clothed and curled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With forest ruffling to the top;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw the river's length unfurled,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Pale silver down the fruited plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Grown great and stately with the rain.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through miles of shadow and soft heat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where field and fallow, fence and tree,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Were all one world of greenery,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I heard the robin ringing sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sparrow piping silverly,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The thrushes at the forest's hem;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And as I went I sang with them.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CLOUD-BREAK" id="CLOUD-BREAK"></a>CLOUD-BREAK</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With a turn of his magical rod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That extended and suddenly shone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the round of his glory some god<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Looks forth and is gone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To the summit of heaven the clouds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are rolling aloft like steam;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's a break in their infinite shrouds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And below it a gleam.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the drift of the river a whiff<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes out from the blossoming shore;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the meadows are greening, as if<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They never were green before.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The islands are kindled with gold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And russet and emerald dye;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the interval waters outrolled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are more blue than the sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From my feet to the heart of the hills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The spirits of May intervene,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a vapor of azure distills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a breath on the opaline green.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span><span class="i0">Only a moment!—and then<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chill and the shadow decline,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the eyes of rejuvenate men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That were wide and divine.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_MOON-PATH" id="THE_MOON-PATH"></a>THE MOON-PATH</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The full, clear moon uprose and spread<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Her cold, pale splendor o'er the sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A light-strewn path that seemed to lead<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Outward into eternity.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Between the darkness and the gleam<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An old-world spell encompassed me:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Methought that in a godlike dream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I trod upon the sea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And lo! upon that glimmering road,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In shining companies unfurled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The trains of many a primal god,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The monsters of the elder world;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strange creatures that, with silver wings,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Scarce touched the ocean's thronging floor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The phantoms of old tales, and things<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose shapes are known no more.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Giants and demi-gods who once<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Were dwellers of the earth and sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they who from Deucalion's stones,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rose men without an infancy;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Beings on whose majestic lids<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Time's solemn secrets seemed to dwell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tritons and pale-limbed Nereids,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And forms of heaven and hell.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Some who were heroes long of yore,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When the great world was hale and young;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And some whose marble lips yet pour<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The murmur of an antique tongue;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sad queens, whose names are like soft moans,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose griefs were written up in gold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And some who on their silver thrones<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Were goddesses of old.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As if I had been dead indeed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And come into some after-land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw them pass me, and take heed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And touch me with each mighty hand;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And evermore a murmurous stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So beautiful they seemed to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not less than in a godlike dream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I trod the shining sea.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="COMFORT_OF_THE_FIELDS" id="COMFORT_OF_THE_FIELDS"></a>COMFORT OF THE FIELDS</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What would'st thou have for easement after grief,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When the rude world hath used thee with despite,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And care sits at thine elbow day and night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filching thy pleasures like a subtle thief?</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">To me, when life besets me in such wise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis sweetest to break forth, to drop the chain,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And grasp the freedom of this pleasant earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To roam in idleness and sober mirth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through summer airs and summer lands, and drain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The comfort of wide fields unto tired eyes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">By hills and waters, farms and solitudes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To wander by the day with wilful feet;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Through fielded valleys wide with yellowing wheat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Along gray roads that run between deep woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Murmurous and cool; through hallowed slopes of pine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where the long daylight dreams, unpierced, unstirred,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And only the rich-throated thrush is heard;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By lonely forest brooks that froth and shine<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In bouldered crannies buried in the hills;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By broken beeches tangled with wild vine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And log-strewn rivers murmurous with mills.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In upland pastures, sown with gold, and sweet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With the keen perfume of the ripening grass,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where wings of birds and filmy shadows pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spread thick as stars with shining marguerite;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To haunt old fences overgrown with brier,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Muffled in vines, and hawthorns, and wild cherries,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rank poisonous ivies, red-bunched elderberries,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">And pièd blossoms to the heart's desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gray mullein towering into yellow bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pink-tasseled milkweed, breathing dense perfume,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And swarthy vervain, tipped with violet fire.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To hear at eve the bleating of far flocks,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mud-hen's whistle from the marsh at morn;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To skirt with deafened ears and brain o'erborne<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some foam-filled rapid charging down its rocks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With iron roar of waters; far away<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Across wide-reeded meres, pensive with noon,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To hear the querulous outcry of the loon;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lie among deep rocks, and watch all day<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On liquid heights the snowy clouds melt by;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or hear from wood-capped mountain-brows the jay<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pierce the bright morning with his jibing cry.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To feast on summer sounds; the jolted wains,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The thrasher humming from the farm near by,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The prattling cricket's intermittent cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The locust's rattle from the sultry lanes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or in the shadow of some oaken spray,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To watch, as through a mist of light and dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The far-off hay-fields, where the dusty teams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drive round and round the lessening squares of hay,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And hear upon the wind, now loud, now low,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With drowsy cadence half a summer's day,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The clatter of the reapers come and go.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span><span class="i0">Far violet hills, horizons filmed with showers,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The murmur of cool streams, the forest's gloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The voices of the breathing grass, the hum<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of ancient gardens overbanked with flowers:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus, with a smile as golden as the dawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And cool fair fingers radiantly divine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mighty mother brings us in her hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For all tired eyes and foreheads pinched and wan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her restful cup, her beaker of bright wine:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Drink, and be filled, and ye shall understand!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="AT_THE_FERRY" id="AT_THE_FERRY"></a>AT THE FERRY</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On such a day the shrunken stream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Spends its last water and runs dry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clouds like far turrets in a dream<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Stand baseless in the burning sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On such a day at every rod<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The toilers in the hay-field halt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With dripping brows, and the parched sod<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yields to the crushing foot like salt.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But here a little wind astir,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seen waterward in jetting lines,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From yonder hillside topped with fir<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Comes pungent with the breath of pines;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And here when all the noon hangs still,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">White-hot upon the city tiles,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A perfume and a wintry chill<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Breathe from the yellow lumber-piles.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span><span class="i0">And all day long there falls a blur<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of noises upon listless ears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rumble of the trams, the stir<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of barges at the clacking piers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The champ of wheels, the crash of steam,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And ever, without change or stay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The drone, as through a troubled dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of waters falling far away.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A tug-boat up the farther shore<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Half pants, half whistles, in her draught;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cadence of a creaking oar<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Falls drowsily; a corded raft<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Creeps slowly in the noonday gleam,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And wheresoe'er a shadow sleeps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The men lie by, or half a-dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Stand leaning at the idle sweeps.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And all day long in the quiet bay<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The eddying amber depths retard,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hold, as in a ring, at play,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The heavy saw-logs notched and scarred;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yonder between cape and shoal,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where the long currents swing and shift,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An aged punt-man with his pole<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is searching in the parted drift.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At moments from the distant glare<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The murmur of a railway steals<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round yonder jutting point the air<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is beaten with the puff of wheels;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">And here at hand an open mill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Strong clamor at perpetual drive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With changing chant, now hoarse, now shrill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Keeps dinning like a mighty hive.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A furnace over field and mead,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The rounding noon hangs hard and white;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the gathering heats recede<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The hollows of the Chelsea height;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But under all to one quiet tune,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A spirit in cool depths withdrawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With logs, and dust, and wrack bestrewn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The stately river journeys on.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I watch the swinging currents go<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Far down to where, enclosed and piled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The logs crowd, and the Gatineau<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Comes rushing from the northern wild.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I see the long low point, where close<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The shore-lines, and the waters end,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I watch the barges pass in rows<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That vanish at the tapering bend.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I see as at the noon's pale core—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A shadow that lifts clear and floats—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cabin'd village round the shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The landing and the fringe of boats;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faint films of smoke that curl and wreathe,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And upward with the like desire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The vast gray church that seems to breathe<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In heaven with its dreaming spire.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span><span class="i0">And there the last blue boundaries rise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That guard within their compass furled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This plot of earth: beyond them lies<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mystery of the echoing world;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And still my thought goes on, and yields<br /></span> +<span class="i2">New vision and new joy to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far peopled hills, and ancient fields,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And cities by the crested sea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I see no more the barges pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor mark the ripple round the pier,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the uproar, mass on mass,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Falls dead upon a vacant ear.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the tumult of the mills,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And all the city's sound and strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the waste, beyond the hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I look far out and dream of life.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SEPTEMBER" id="SEPTEMBER"></a>SEPTEMBER</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now hath the summer reached her golden close,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, lost amid her corn-fields, bright of soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scarcely perceives from her divine repose<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How near, how swift, the inevitable goal:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still, still, she smiles, though from her careless feet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The bounty and the fruitful strength are gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And through the soft long wondering days goes on<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The silent sere decadence sad and sweet.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span><span class="i0">The kingbird and the pensive thrush are fled,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Children of light, too fearful of the gloom;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun falls low, the secret word is said,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mouldering woods grow silent as the tomb;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even the fields have lost their sovereign grace,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The cone-flower and the marguerite; and no more,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Across the river's shadow-haunted floor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The paths of skimming swallows interlace.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Already in the outland wilderness<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The forests echo with unwonted dins;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In clamorous gangs the gathering woodmen press<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Northward, and the stern winter's toil begins.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Around the long low shanties, whose rough lines<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Break the sealed dreams of many an unnamed lake,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Already in the frost-clear morns awake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The crash and thunder of the falling pines.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Where the tilled earth, with all its fields set free,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Naked and yellow from the harvest lies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By many a loft and busy granary,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The hum and tumult of the thrashers rise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There the tanned farmers labor without slack,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till twilight deepens round the spouting mill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Feeding the loosened sheaves, or with fierce will,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pitching waist-deep upon the dusty stack.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span><span class="i0">Still a brief while, ere the old year quite pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Our wandering steps and wistful eyes shall greet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The leaf, the water, the beloved grass;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Still from these haunts and this accustomed seat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I see the wood-wrapt city, swept with light,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The blue long-shadowed distance, and, between,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The dotted farm-lands with their parcelled green,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dark pine forest and the watchful height.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I see the broad rough meadow stretched away<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Into the crystal sunshine, wastes of sod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Acres of withered vervain, purple-gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Branches of aster, groves of goldenrod;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yonder, toward the sunlit summit, strewn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With shadowy boulders, crowned and swathed with weed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Stand ranks of silken thistles, blown to seed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long silver fleeces shining like the noon.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In far-off russet corn-fields, where the dry<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gray shocks stand peaked and withering, half concealed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the rough earth, the orange pumpkins lie,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Full-ribbed; and in the windless pasture-field<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sleek red horses o'er the sun-warmed ground<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Stand pensively about in companies,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">While all around them from the motionless trees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The long clean shadows sleep without a sound.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span><span class="i0">Under cool elm-trees floats the distant stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Moveless as air; and o'er the vast warm earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fathomless daylight seems to stand and dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A liquid cool elixir—all its girth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bound with faint haze, a frail transparency,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose lucid purple barely veils and fills<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The utmost valleys and the thin last hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor mars one whit their perfect clarity.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thus without grief the golden days go by,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So soft we scarcely notice how they wend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And like a smile half happy, or a sigh,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The summer passes to her quiet end;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And soon, too soon, around the cumbered eaves<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sly frosts shall take the creepers by surprise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And through the wind-touched reddening woods shall rise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">October with the rain of ruined leaves.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="A_RE-ASSURANCE" id="A_RE-ASSURANCE"></a>A RE-ASSURANCE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With what doubting eyes, oh sparrow,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Thou regardest me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Underneath yon spray of yarrow,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Dipping cautiously.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fear me not, oh little sparrow,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Bathe and never fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For to me both pool and yarrow<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And thyself are dear.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="THE_POETS_POSSESSION" id="THE_POETS_POSSESSION"></a>THE POET'S POSSESSION</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Think not, oh master of the well-tilled field,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This earth is only thine; for after thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When all is sown and gathered and put by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes the grave poet with creative eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from these silent acres and clean plots,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bids with his wand the fancied after-yield,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A second tilth and second harvest, be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The crop of images and curious thoughts.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="AN_AUTUMN_LANDSCAPE" id="AN_AUTUMN_LANDSCAPE"></a>AN AUTUMN LANDSCAPE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No wind there is that either pipes or moans;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The fields are cold and still; the sky<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Is covered with a blue-gray sheet<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of motionless cloud; and at my feet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The river, curling softly by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whispers and dimples round its quiet gray stones.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Along the chill green slope that dips and heaves<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The road runs rough and silent, lined<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With plum-trees, misty and blue-gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And poplars pallid as the day,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In masses spectral, undefined,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pale greenish stems half hid in dry gray leaves.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And on beside the river's sober edge<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A long fresh field lies black. Beyond,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Low thickets gray and reddish stand,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i4">Stroked white with birch; and near at hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Over a little steel-smooth pond,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hang multitudes of thin and withering sedge.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Across a waste and solitary rise<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A ploughman urges his dull team,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A stooped gray figure with prone brow<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That plunges bending to the plough<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With strong, uneven steps. The stream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rings and re-echoes with his furious cries.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sometimes the lowing of a cow, long-drawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Comes from far off; and crows in strings<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Pass on the upper silences.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A flock of small gray goldfinches,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flown down with silvery twitterings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rustle among the birch-cones and are gone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This day the season seems like one that heeds,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With fixèd ear and lifted hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">All moods that yet are known on earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">All motions that have faintest birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If haply she may understand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The utmost inward sense of all her deeds.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IN_NOVEMBER" id="IN_NOVEMBER"></a>IN NOVEMBER</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With loitering step and quiet eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the low November sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I wandered in the woods, and found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A clearing, where the broken ground</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Was scattered with black stumps and briers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the old wreck of forest fires.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It was a bleak and sandy spot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, all about, the vacant plot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was peopled and inhabited<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By scores of mulleins long since dead.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A silent and forsaken brood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In that mute opening of the wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So shrivelled and so thin they were,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So gray, so haggard, and austere,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not plants at all they seemed to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But rather some spare company<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of hermit folk, who long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wandering in bodies to and fro,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had chanced upon this lonely way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rested thus, till death one day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surprised them at their compline prayer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And left them standing lifeless there.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There was no sound about the wood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save the wind's secret stir. I stood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among the mullein-stalks as still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if myself had grown to be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One of their sombre company,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A body without wish or will.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And as I stood, quite suddenly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down from a furrow in the sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun shone out a little space<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Across that silent sober place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over the sand heaps and brown sod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mulleins and dead goldenrod,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">And passed beyond the thickets gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lit the fallen leaves that lay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Level and deep within the wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A rustling yellow multitude.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And all around me the thin light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So sere, so melancholy bright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell like the half-reflected gleam<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or shadow of some former dream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A moment's golden revery<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poured out on every plant and tree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A semblance of weird joy, or less,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sort of spectral happiness;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I, too, standing idly there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With muffled hands in the chill air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Felt the warm glow about my feet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And shuddering betwixt cold and heat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drew my thoughts closer, like a cloak,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While something in my blood awoke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A nameless and unnatural cheer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A pleasure secret and austere.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BY_AN_AUTUMN_STREAM" id="BY_AN_AUTUMN_STREAM"></a>BY AN AUTUMN STREAM</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now overhead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the rivulet loiters and stops,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bittersweet hangs from the tops<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the alders and cherries<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its bunches of beautiful berries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Orange and red.</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span><span class="i0">And the snowbirds flee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tossing up on the far brown field,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now flashing and now concealed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like fringes of spray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That vanish and gleam on the gray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Field of the sea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Flickering light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come the last of the leaves down borne,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And patches of pale white corn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the wind complain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the slow rustle of rain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Noticed by night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Withered and thinned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sentinel mullein looms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the pale gray shadowy plumes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the goldenrod;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the milkweed opens its pod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tempting the wind.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Aloft on the hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A cloudrift opens and shines<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through a break in its gorget of pines,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And it dreams at my feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a sad, silvery sheet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Utterly still.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All things that be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seem plunged into silence, distraught,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By some stern, some necessitous thought:</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">It wraps and enthralls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Marsh, meadow, and forest; and falls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Also on me.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SNOWBIRDS" id="SNOWBIRDS"></a>SNOWBIRDS</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Along the narrow sandy height<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I watch them swiftly come and go,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Or round the leafless wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like flurries of wind-driven snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Revolving in perpetual flight,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A changing multitude.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nearer and nearer still they sway,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, scattering in a circled sweep,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Rush down without a sound;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And now I see them peer and peep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Across yon level bleak and gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Searching the frozen ground,—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Until a little wind upheaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And makes a sudden rustling there,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And then they drop their play,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flash up into the sunless air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And like a flight of silver leaves<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Swirl round and sweep away.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="SNOW" id="SNOW"></a>SNOW</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">White are the far-off plains, and white<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The fading forests grow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wind dies out along the height,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And denser still the snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gathering weight on roof and tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Falls down scarce audibly.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The road before me smooths and fills<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Apace, and all about<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fences dwindle, and the hills<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Are blotted slowly out;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The naked trees loom spectrally<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Into the dim white sky.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The meadows and far-sheeted streams<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Lie still without a sound;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like some soft minister of dreams<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The snow-fall hoods me round;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In wood and water, earth and air,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A silence everywhere.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Save when at lonely intervals<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Some farmer's sleigh, urged on,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With rustling runners and sharp bells,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Swings by me and is gone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or from the empty waste I hear<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A sound remote and clear;</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span><span class="i0">The barking of a dog, or call<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To cattle, sharply pealed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Borne echoing from some wayside stall<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Or barnyard far a-field;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then all is silent, and the snow<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Falls, settling soft and slow.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The evening deepens, and the gray<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Folds closer earth and sky;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world seems shrouded far away;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Its noises sleep, and I,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As secret as yon buried stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Plod dumbly on, and dream.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SUNSET" id="SUNSET"></a>SUNSET</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">From this windy bridge at rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In some former curious hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We have watched the city's hue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All along the orange west,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cupola and pointed tower,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Darken into solid blue.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tho' the biting north wind breaks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full across this drifted hold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let us stand with icèd cheeks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Watching westward as of old;</span><br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span><span class="i0">Past the violet mountain-head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the farthest fringe of pine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where far off the purple-red<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Narrows to a dusky line,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the last pale splendors die<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slowly from the olive sky;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Till the thin clouds wear away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into threads of purple-gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the sudden stars between<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brighten in the pallid green;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Till above the spacious east,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slow returnèd one by one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like pale prisoners released<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the dungeons of the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Capella and her train appear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the glittering Charioteer;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Till the rounded moon shall grow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great above the eastern snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shining into burnished gold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the silver earth outrolled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the misty yellow light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall take on the width of night.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></div> +<h2><a name="WINTER-STORE" id="WINTER-STORE"></a>WINTER-STORE</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Subtly conscious, all awake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let us clear our eyes, and break<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the cloudy chrysalis,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See the wonder as it is.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down a narrow alley, blind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Touch and vision, heart and mind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turned sharply inward, still we plod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till the calmly smiling god<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leaves us, and our spirits grow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More thin, more acrid, as we go.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Creeping by the sullen wall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We forego the power to see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The threads that bind us to the All,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God or the Immensity;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereof on the eternal road<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man is but a passing mode.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Too blind we are, too little see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the magic pageantry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Every minute, every hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the cloudflake to the flower,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forever old, forever strange,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Issuing in perpetual change<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the rainbow gates of Time.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But he who through this common air<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surely knows the great and fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What is lovely, what sublime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Becomes in an increasing span,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One with earth and one with man,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">One, despite these mortal scars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the planets and the stars;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Nature from her holy place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bending with unveilèd face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fills him in her divine employ<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With her own majestic joy.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Up the fielded slopes at morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where light wefts of shadow pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Films upon the bending corn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall sweep the purple grass.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sun-crowned heights and mossy woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the outer solitudes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mountain-valleys, dim with pine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall be home and haunt of mine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall search in crannied hollows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the sunlight scarcely follows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the secret forest brook<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Murmurs, and from nook to nook<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forever downward curls and cools,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Frothing in the bouldered pools.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Many a noon shall find me laid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the pungent balsam shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where sharp breezes spring and shiver<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On some deep rough-coasted river,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the plangent waters come,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amber-hued and streaked with foam;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where beneath the sunburnt hills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All day long the crowded mills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With remorseless champ and scream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Overlord the sluicing stream,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">And the rapids' iron roar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hammers at the forest's core;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where corded rafts creep slowly on,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glittering in the noonday sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the tawny river-dogs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shepherding the branded logs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bind and heave with cadenced cry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the blackened tugs go by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Panting hard and straining slow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laboring at the weighty tow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flat-nosed barges all in trim,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Creeping in long cumbrous line,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loaded to the water's brim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the clean, cool-scented pine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Perhaps in some low meadow-land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stretching wide on either hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall see the belted bees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rocking with the tricksy breeze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the spirèd meadow-sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or with eager trampling feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Burrowing in the boneset blooms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Treading out the dry perfumes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where sun-hot hay-fields newly mown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Climb the hillside ruddy brown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall see the haymakers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the noonday scarcely stirs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brown of neck and booted gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tossing up the rustling hay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the hay-racks bend and rock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As they take each scented cock,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Jolting over dip and rise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the wavering butterflies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the spaces brown and bare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Light and wander here and there.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I shall stray by many a stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the half-shut lilies gleam.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Napping out the sultry days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the quiet secluded bays;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the tasseled rushes tower,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the purple pickerel-flower.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the floating dragon-fly—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Azure glint and crystal gleam—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Watches o'er the burnished stream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With his eye of ebony;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the bull-frog lolls at rest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On his float of lily-leaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the swaying water weaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And distends his yellow breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lowing out from shore to shore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a hollow vibrant roar;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the softest wind that blows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As it lightly comes and goes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the jungled river meads,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stirs a whisper in the reeds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wakes the crowded bull-rushes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From their stately reveries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flashing through their long-leaved hordes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a brandishing of swords;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There, too, the frost-like arrow-flowers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tremble to the golden core,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Children of enchanted hours,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whom the rustling river bore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the night's bewildered noon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Woven of water and the moon.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I shall hear the grasshoppers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the parched grass rehearse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with drowsy note prolong<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Evermore the same thin song.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall hear the crickets tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stories by the humming well,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mark the locust, with quaint eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Caper in his cloak of gray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a jester in disguise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rattling by the dusty way.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I shall dream by upland fences,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the season's wealth condenses<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over many a weedy wreck,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wild, uncared-for, desert places,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That sovereign Beauty loves to deck<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With her softest, dearest graces.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There the long year dreams in quiet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the summer's strength runs riot.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall I not remember these,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deep in winter reveries?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Berried brier and thistle-bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And milkweed with its dense perfume;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slender vervain towering up<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a many-branchèd cup,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a candlestick, each spire</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Kindled with a violet fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Matted creepers and wild cherries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Purple-bunchèd elderberries,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on scanty plots of sod<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Groves of branchy goldenrod.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What though autumn mornings now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Winterward with glittering brow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stiffen in the silver grass;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what though robins flock and pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With subdued and sober call,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the old year's funeral;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though October's crimson leaves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rustle at the gusty door,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the tempest round the eaves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alternate with pipe and roar;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sit, as erst, unharmed, secure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Conscious that my store is sure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whatsoe'er the fencèd fields,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or the untilled forest yields<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of unhurt remembrances,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or thoughts, far-glimpsed, half-followed, these<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have reaped and laid away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A treasure of unwinnowed grain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the garner packed and gray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gathered without toil or strain.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And when the darker days shall come,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the fields are white and dumb;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When our fires are half in vain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the crystal starlight weaves</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Mockeries of summer leaves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pictured on the icy pane;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the high aurora gleams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far above the Arctic streams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a line of shifting spears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the broad pine-circled meres,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glimmering in that spectral light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thunder through the northern night;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then within the bolted door<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall con my summer store;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though the fences scarcely show<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Black above the drifted snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though the icy sweeping wind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whistle in the empty tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Safe within the sheltered mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall feed on memory.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet across the windy night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes upon its wings a cry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fashioned forms and modes take flight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a vision sad and high<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the laboring world down there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the lights burn red and warm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pricks my soul with sudden stare,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glowing through the veils of storm.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the city yonder sleep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those who smile and those who weep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those whose lips are set with care,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those whose brows are smooth and fair;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Mourners whom the dawning light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall grapple with an old distress;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lovers folded at midnight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In their bridal happiness;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pale watchers by belovèd beds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fallen a-drowse with nodding heads,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whom sleep captured by surprise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the circles round their eyes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Maidens with quiet-taken breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dreaming of enchanted bowers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old men with the mask of death;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Little children soft as flowers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those who wake wild-eyed and start<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In some madness of the heart;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those whose lips and brows of stone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Evil thoughts have graven upon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shade by shade and line by line,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Refashioning what was once divine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All these sleep, and through the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes a passion and a cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a blind sorrow and a might,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know not whence, I know not why,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A something I cannot control,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A nameless hunger of the soul.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It holds me fast. In vain, in vain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I remember how of old<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw the ruddy race of men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the glittering world outrolled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gay-smiling multitude,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">All immortal, all divine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Treading in a wreathèd line<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By a pathway through a wood.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_SUN_CUP" id="THE_SUN_CUP"></a>THE SUN CUP</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The earth is the cup of the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That he filleth at morning with wine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the warm, strong wine of his might<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the vintage of gold and of light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fills it, and makes it divine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And at night when his journey is done,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the gate of his radiant hall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He setteth his lips to the brim,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a long last look of his eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lifts it and draineth it dry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drains till he leaveth it all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Empty and hollow and dim.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And then, as he passes to sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still full of the feats that he did,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long ago in Olympian wars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He closes it down with the sweep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of its slow-turning luminous lid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its cover of darkness and stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wrought once by Hephæstus of old<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With violet and vastness and gold.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="width: 50%; margin: auto; margin-bottom: 40px;">The first edition of this book +consists of five hundred copies, +printed by the Boston Engraving +and McIndoe Printing Company, +Boston, during March, 1896, with +fifty additional copies on Arnold +paper.</p> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lyrics of Earth, by Archibald Lampman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYRICS OF EARTH *** + +***** This file should be named 12664-h.htm or 12664-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/6/6/12664/ + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Jana Srna and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced +from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for +Historical Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org)) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: Lyrics of Earth + +Author: Archibald Lampman + +Release Date: June 19, 2004 [EBook #12664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYRICS OF EARTH *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Sly. + +Thank you to Canadian Poetry [http://www.canadianpoetry.ca] for +providing the source text. + + + + + +Lyrics of Earth + +By Archibald Lampman + + + +First published in Boston by Copeland and Day, 1895. + + + +To my Mother + + +Mother, to whose valiant will + Battling long ago, +What the heaping years fulfil, + Light and song, I owe; +Send my little book afield, + Fronting praise or blame +With the shining flag and shield + Of your name. + + + +CONTENTS + +The Sweetness of Life +God-Speed to the Snow +April in the Hills +Forest Moods +The Return of the Year +Favorites of Pan +The Meadow +In May +Life and Nature +With the Night +June +Distance +The Bird and the Hour +After Rain +Cloud-Break +The Moon-Path +Comfort of the Fields +At the Ferry +September +A Re-assurance +The Poet's Possession +An Autumn Landscape +In November +By an Autumn Stream +Snowbirds +Snow +Sunset +Winter-Store +The Sun Cup + + + + +THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE + + +It fell on a day I was happy, + And the winds, the concave sky, +The flowers and the beasts in the meadow + Seemed happy even as I; +And I stretched my hands to the meadow, + To the bird, the beast, the tree: +"Why are ye all so happy?" + I cried, and they answered me. + +What sayest thou, Oh meadow, + That stretchest so wide, so far, +That none can say how many + Thy misty marguerites are? +And what say ye, red roses, + That o'er the sun-blanched wall +From your high black-shadowed trellis + Like flame or blood-drops fall? + "We are born, we are reared, and we linger + A various space and die; + We dream, and are bright and happy, + But we cannot answer why." + +What sayest thou, Oh shadow, + That from the dreaming hill +All down the broadening valley + Liest so sharp and still? +And thou, Oh murmuring brooklet, + Whereby in the noonday gleam +The loosestrife burns like ruby, + And the branchèd asters dream? + "We are born, we are reared, and we linger + A various space and die; + We dream and are very happy, + But we cannot answer why." + +And then of myself I questioned, + That like a ghost the while +Stood from me and calmly answered, + With slow and curious smile: +"Thou art born as the flowers, and wilt linger + Thine own short space and die; +Thou dream'st and art strangely happy, + But thou canst not answer why." + + + + +GOD-SPEED TO THE SNOW + + +March is slain; the keen winds fly; +Nothing more is thine to do; +April kisses thee good-bye; +Thou must haste and follow too; +Silent friend that guarded well +Withered things to make us glad, +Shyest friend that could not tell +Half the kindly thought he had. +Haste thee, speed thee, O kind snow; +Down the dripping valleys go, +From the fields and gleaming meadows, +Where the slaying hours behold thee, +From the forests whose slim shadows, +Brown and leafless cannot fold thee, +Through the cedar lands aflame +With gold light that cleaves and quivers, +Songs that winter may not tame, +Drone of pines and laugh of rivers. +May thy passing joyous be +To thy father, the great sea, +For the sun is getting stronger; +Earth hath need of thee no longer; +Go, kind snow, God-speed to thee! + + + + +APRIL IN THE HILLS + + +To-day the world is wide and fair +With sunny fields of lucid air, +And waters dancing everywhere; + The snow is almost gone; +The noon is builded high with light, +And over heaven's liquid height, +In steady fleets serene and white, + The happy clouds go on. + +The channels run, the bare earth steams, +And every hollow rings and gleams +With jetting falls and dashing streams; + The rivers burst and fill; +The fields are full of little lakes, +And when the romping wind awakes +The water ruffles blue and shakes, + And the pines roar on the hill. + +The crows go by, a noisy throng; +About the meadows all day long +The shore-lark drops his brittle song; + And up the leafless tree +The nut-hatch runs, and nods, and clings; +The bluebird dips with flashing wings, +The robin flutes, the sparrow sings, + And the swallows float and flee. + +I break the spirit's cloudy bands, +A wanderer in enchanted lands, +I feel the sun upon my hands; + And far from care and strife +The broad earth bids me forth. I rise +With lifted brow and upward eyes. +I bathe my spirit in blue skies, + And taste the springs of life. + +I feel the tumult of new birth; +I waken with the wakening earth; +I match the bluebird in her mirth; + And wild with wind and sun, +A treasurer of immortal days, +I roam the glorious world with praise, +The hillsides and the woodland ways, + Till earth and I are one. + + + + +FOREST MOODS + + +There is singing of birds in the deep wet woods, +In the heart of the listening solitudes, +Pewees, and thrushes, and sparrows, not few, +And all the notes of their throats are true. + +The thrush from the innermost ash takes on +A tender dream of the treasured and gone; +But the sparrow singeth with pride and cheer +Of the might and light of the present and here. + +There is shining of flowers in the deep wet woods, +In the heart of the sensitive solitudes, +The roseate bell and the lily are there, +And every leaf of their sheaf is fair. + +Careless and bold, without dream of woe, +The trilliums scatter their flags of snow; +But the pale wood-daffodil covers her face, +Agloom with the doom of a sorrowful race. + + + + +THE RETURN OF THE YEAR + + +Again the warm bare earth, the noon + That hangs upon her healing scars, +The midnight round, the great red moon, + The mother with her brood of stars, + +The mist-rack and the wakening rain + Blown soft in many a forest way, +The yellowing elm-trees, and again + The blood-root in its sheath of gray. + +The vesper-sparrow's song, the stress + Of yearning notes that gush and stream, +The lyric joy, the tenderness, + And once again the dream! the dream! + +A touch of far-off joy and power, + A something it is life to learn, +Comes back to earth, and one short hour + The glamours of the gods return. + +This life's old mood and cult of care + Falls smitten by an older truth, +And the gray world wins back to her + The rapture of her vanished youth. + +Dead thoughts revive, and he that heeds + Shall hear, as by a spirit led, +A song among the golden reeds: + "The gods are vanished but not dead!" + +For one short hour, unseen yet near, + They haunt us, a forgotten mood, +A glory upon mead and mere, + A magic in the leafless wood. + +At morning we shall catch the glow + Of Dian's quiver on the hill, +And somewhere in the glades I know + That Pan is at his piping still. + + + + +FAVORITES OF PAN + + +Once, long ago, before the gods + Had left this earth, by stream and forest glade, +Where the first plough upturned the clinging sods, + Or the lost shepherd strayed, + +Often to the tired listener's ear + There came at noonday or beneath the stars +A sound, he knew not whence, so sweet and clear, + That all his aches and scars + +And every brooded bitterness, + Fallen asunder from his soul took flight, +Like mist or darkness yielding to the press + Of an unnamed delight,-- + +A sudden brightness of the heart, + A magic fire drawn down from Paradise, +That rent the cloud with golden gleam apart,-- + And far before his eyes + +The loveliness and calm of earth + Lay like a limitless dream remote and strange, +The joy, the strife, the triumph and the mirth, + And the enchanted change; + +And so he followed the sweet sound, + Till faith had traversed her appointed span, +And murmured as he pressed the sacred ground: + "It is the note of Pan!" + +Now though no more by marsh or stream + Or dewy forest sounds the secret reed-- +For Pan is gone--Ah yet, the infinite dream + Still lives for them that heed. + +In April, when the turning year + Regains its pensive youth, and a soft breath +And amorous influence over marsh and mere + Dissolves the grasp of death, + +To them that are in love with life, + Wandering like children with untroubled eyes, +Far from the noise of cities and the strife, + Strange flute-like voices rise + +At noon and in the quiet of the night + From every watery waste; and in that hour +The same strange spell, the same unnamed delight, + Enfolds them in its power. + +An old-world joyousness supreme, + The warmth and glow of an immortal balm, +The mood-touch of the gods, the endless dream, + The high lethean calm. + +They see, wide on the eternal way, + The services of earth, the life of man; +And, listening to the magic cry they say: + "It is the note of Pan!" + +For, long ago, when the new strains + Of hostile hymns and conquering faiths grew keen, +And the old gods from their deserted fanes, + Fled silent and unseen, + +So, too, the goat-foot Pan, not less + Sadly obedient to the mightier hand, +Cut him new reeds, and in a sore distress + Passed out from land to land; + +And lingering by each haunt he knew, + Of fount or sinuous stream or grassy marge, +He set the syrinx to his lips, and blew + A note divinely large; + +And all around him on the wet + Cool earth the frogs came up, and with a smile +He took them in his hairy hands, and set + His mouth to theirs awhile, + +And blew into their velvet throats; + And ever from that hour the frogs repeat +The murmur of Pan's pipes, the notes, + And answers strange and sweet; + +And they that hear them are renewed + By knowledge in some god-like touch conveyed, +Entering again into the eternal mood, + Wherein the world was made. + + + + +THE MEADOW + + +Here when the cloudless April days begin, + And the quaint crows flock thicker day by day, +Filling the forests with a pleasant din, + And the soiled snow creeps secretly away, +Comes the small busy sparrow, primed with glee, + First preacher in the naked wilderness, + Piping an end to all the long distress +From every fence and every leafless tree. + +Now with soft slight and viewless artifice + Winter's iron work is wondrously undone; +In all the little hollows cored with ice + The clear brown pools stand simmering in the sun, +Frail lucid worlds, upon whose tremulous floors + All day the wandering water-bugs at will, + Shy mariners whose oars are never still, +Voyage and dream about the heightening shores. + +The bluebird, peeping from the gnarlèd thorn, + Prattles upon his frolic flute, or flings, +In bounding flight across the golden morn, + An azure gleam from off his splendid wings. +Here the slim-pinioned swallows sweep and pass + Down to the far-off river; the black crow + With wise and wary visage to and fro +Settles and stalks about the withered grass. + +Here, when the murmurous May-day is half gone, + The watchful lark before my feet takes flight, +And wheeling to some lonelier field far on, + Drops with obstreperous cry; and here at night, +When the first star precedes the great red moon, + The shore-lark tinkles from the darkening field, + Somewhere, we know not, in the dusk concealed, +His little creakling and continuous tune. + +Here, too, the robins, lusty as of old, + Hunt the waste grass for forage, or prolong +From every quarter of these fields the bold, + Blithe phrases of their never-finished song. +The white-throat's distant descant with slow stress + Note after note upon the noonday falls, + Filling the leisured air at intervals +With his own mood of piercing pensiveness. + +How often from this windy upland perch, + Mine eyes have seen the forest break in bloom, +The rose-red maple and the golden birch, + The dusty yellow of the elms, the gloom +Of the tall poplar hung with tasseled black; + Ah, I have watched, till eye and ear and brain + Grew full of dreams as they, the moted plain, +The sun-steeped wood, the marsh-land at its back, + +The valley where the river wheels and fills, + Yon city glimmering in its smoky shroud, +And out at the last misty rim the hills + Blue and far off and mounded like a cloud, +And here the noisy rutted road that goes + Down the slope yonder, flanked on either side + With the smooth-furrowed fields flung black and wide, +Patched with pale water sleeping in the rows. + +So as I watched the crowded leaves expand, + The bloom break sheath, the summer's strength uprear, +In earth's great mother's heart already planned + The heaped and burgeoned plenty of the year, +Even as she from out her wintry cell + My spirit also sprang to life anew, + And day by day as the spring's bounty grew, +Its conquering joy possessed me like a spell. + +In reverie by day and midnight dream + I sought these upland fields and walked apart, +Musing on Nature, till my thought did seem + To read the very secrets of her heart; +In mooded moments earnest and sublime + I stored the themes of many a future song, + Whose substance should be Nature's, clear and strong, +Bound in a casket of majestic rhyme. + +Brave bud-like plans that never reached the fruit, + Like hers our mother's who with every hour, +Easily replenished from the sleepless root, + Covers her bosom with fresh bud and flower; +Yet I was happy as young lovers be, + Who in the season of their passion's birth + Deem that they have their utmost worship's worth, +If love be near them, just to hear and see. + + + + +IN MAY + + +Grief was my master yesternight; + To-morrow I may grieve again; + But now along the windy plain + The clouds have taken flight. + +The sowers in the furrows go; + The lusty river brimmeth on; + The curtains from the hills are gone; + The leaves are out; and lo, + +The silvery distance of the day, + The light horizons, and between + The glory of the perfect green, + The tumult of the May. + +The bobolinks at noonday sing + More softly than the softest flute, + And lightlier than the lightest lute + Their fairy tambours ring. + +The roads far off are towered with dust; + The cherry-blooms are swept and thinned; + In yonder swaying elms the wind + Is charging gust on gust. + +But here there is no stir at all; + The ministers of sun and shadow + Horde all the perfumes of the meadow + Behind a grassy wall. + +An infant rivulet wind-free + Adown the guarded hollow sets, + Over whose brink the violets + Are nodding peacefully. + +From pool to pool it prattles by; + The flashing swallows dip and pass, + Above the tufted marish grass, + And here at rest am I. + +I care not for the old distress, + Nor if to-morrow bid me moan; + To-day is mine, and I have known + An hour of blessedness. + + + + +LIFE AND NATURE + + +I passed through the gates of the city, + The streets were strange and still, +Through the doors of the open churches + The organs were moaning shrill. + +Through the doors and the great high windows + I heard the murmur of prayer, +And the sound of their solemn singing + Streamed out on the sunlit air; + +A sound of some great burden + That lay on the world's dark breast, +Of the old, and the sick, and the lonely, + And the weary that cried for rest. + +I strayed through the midst of the city + Like one distracted or mad. +"Oh, Life! Oh, Life!" I kept saying, + And the very word seemed sad. + +I passed through the gates of the city, + And I heard the small birds sing, +I laid me down in the meadows + Afar from the bell-ringing. + +In the depth and the bloom of the meadows + I lay on the earth's quiet breast, +The poplar fanned me with shadows, + And the veery sang me to rest. + +Blue, blue was the heaven above me, + And the earth green at my feet; +"Oh, Life! Oh, Life!" I kept saying, + And the very word seemed sweet. + + + + +WITH THE NIGHT + + +O doubts, dull passions, and base fears, + That harassed and oppressed the day, +Ye poor remorses and vain tears, + That shook this house of clay: + +All heaven to the western bars + Is glittering with the darker dawn; +Here with the earth, the night, the stars, + Ye have no place: begone! + + + + +JUNE + + +Long, long ago, it seems, this summer morn + That pale-browed April passed with pensive tread + Through the frore woods, and from its frost-bound bed +Woke the arbutus with her silver horn; + And now May, too, is fled, +The flower-crowned month, the merry laughing May, + With rosy feet and fingers dewy wet, +Leaving the woods and all cool gardens gay + With tulips and the scented violet. + +Gone are the wind-flower and the adder-tongue + And the sad drooping bellwort, and no more + The snowy trilliums crowd the forest's floor; +The purpling grasses are no longer young, + And summer's wide-set door +O'er the thronged hills and the broad panting earth + Lets in the torrent of the later bloom, +Haytime, and harvest, and the after mirth, + The slow soft rain, the rushing thunder plume. + +All day in garden alleys moist and dim, + The humid air is burdened with the rose; + In moss-deep woods the creamy orchid blows; +And now the vesper-sparrows' pealing hymn + From every orchard close +At eve comes flooding rich and silvery; + The daisies in great meadows swing and shine; +And with the wind a sound as of the sea + Roars in the maples and the topmost pine. + +High in the hills the solitary thrush + Tunes magically his music of fine dreams, + In briary dells, by boulder-broken streams; +And wide and far on nebulous fields aflush + The mellow morning gleams. +The orange cone-flowers purple-bossed are there, + The meadow's bold-eyed gypsies deep of hue, +And slender hawkweed tall and softly fair, + And rosy tops of fleabane veiled with dew. + +So with thronged voices and unhasting flight + The fervid hours with long return go by; + The far-heard hylas piping shrill and high +Tell the slow moments of the solemn night + With unremitting cry; +Lustrous and large out of the gathering drouth + The planets gleam; the baleful Scorpion +Trails his dim fires along the droused south; + The silent world-incrusted round moves on. + +And all the dim night long the moon's white beams + Nestle deep down in every brooding tree, + And sleeping birds, touched with a silly glee, +Waken at midnight from their blissful dreams, + And carol brokenly. +Dim surging motions and uneasy dreads + Scare the light slumber from men's busy eyes, +And parted lovers on their restless beds + Toss and yearn out, and cannot sleep for sighs. + +Oft have I striven, sweet month, to figure thee, + As dreamers of old time were wont to feign, + In living form of flesh, and striven in vain; +Yet when some sudden old-world mystery + Of passion fired my brain, +Thy shape hath flashed upon me like no dream, + Wandering with scented curls that heaped the breeze, +Or by the hollow of some reeded stream + Sitting waist-deep in white anemones; + +And even as I glimpsed thee thou wert gone, + A dream for mortal eyes too proudly coy, + Yet in thy place for subtle thought's employ +The golden magic clung, a light that shone + And filled me with thy joy. +Before me like a mist that streamed and fell + All names and shapes of antique beauty passed +In garlanded procession with the swell + Of flutes between the beechen stems; and last, + +I saw the Arcadian valley, the loved wood, + Alpheus stream divine, the sighing shore, + And through the cool green glades, awake once more, +Psyche, the white-limbed goddess, still pursued, + Fleet-footed as of yore, +The noonday ringing with her frighted peals, + Down the bright sward and through the reeds she ran, +Urged by the mountain echoes, at her heels + The hot-blown cheeks and trampling feet of Pan. + + + + +DISTANCE + + +To the distance! Ah, the distance! + Blue and broad and dim! +Peace is not in burgh or meadow, + But beyond the rim. + +Aye, beyond it, far beyond it; + Follow still my soul, +Till this earth is lost in heaven, + And thou feel'st the whole. + + + + +THE BIRD AND THE HOUR + + +The sun looks over a little hill + And floods the valley with gold-- + A torrent of gold; +And the hither field is green and still; + Beyond it a cloud outrolled, + Is glowing molten and bright; +And soon the hill, and the valley and all, + With a quiet fall, + Shall be gathered into the night. + And yet a moment more, + Out of the silent wood, + As if from the closing door +Of another world and another lovelier mood, + Hear'st thou the hermit pour-- + So sweet! so magical!-- +His golden music, ghostly beautiful. + + + + +AFTER RAIN + + +For three whole days across the sky, +In sullen packs that loomed and broke, +With flying fringes dim as smoke, +The columns of the rain went by; +At every hour the wind awoke; + The darkness passed upon the plain; + The great drops rattled at the pane. + +Now piped the wind, or far aloof +Fell to a sough remote and dull; +And all night long with rush and lull +The rain kept drumming on the roof: +I heard till ear and sense were full + The clash or silence of the leaves, + The gurgle in the creaking eaves. + +But when the fourth day came--at noon, +The darkness and the rain were by; +The sunward roofs were steaming dry; +And all the world was flecked and strewn +With shadows from a fleecy sky. + The haymakers were forth and gone, + And every rillet laughed and shone. + +Then, too, on me that loved so well +The world, despairing in her blight, +Uplifted with her least delight, +On me, as on the earth, there fell +New happiness of mirth and might; + I strode the valleys pied and still; + I climbed upon the breezy hill. + +I watched the gray hawk wheel and drop, +Sole shadow on the shining world; +I saw the mountains clothed and curled, +With forest ruffling to the top; +I saw the river's length unfurled, + Pale silver down the fruited plain, + Grown great and stately with the rain. + +Through miles of shadow and soft heat, +Where field and fallow, fence and tree, +Were all one world of greenery, +I heard the robin ringing sweet, +The sparrow piping silverly, + The thrushes at the forest's hem; + And as I went I sang with them. + + + + +CLOUD-BREAK + + +With a turn of his magical rod, +That extended and suddenly shone, +From the round of his glory some god +Looks forth and is gone. + +To the summit of heaven the clouds +Are rolling aloft like steam; +There's a break in their infinite shrouds, +And below it a gleam. +O'er the drift of the river a whiff +Comes out from the blossoming shore; +And the meadows are greening, as if +They never were green before. + +The islands are kindled with gold +And russet and emerald dye; +And the interval waters outrolled +Are more blue than the sky. +From my feet to the heart of the hills +The spirits of May intervene, +And a vapor of azure distills +Like a breath on the opaline green. + +Only a moment!--and then +The chill and the shadow decline, +On the eyes of rejuvenate men +That were wide and divine. + + + + +THE MOON-PATH + + +The full, clear moon uprose and spread + Her cold, pale splendor o'er the sea; +A light-strewn path that seemed to lead + Outward into eternity. +Between the darkness and the gleam + An old-world spell encompassed me: +Methought that in a godlike dream + I trod upon the sea. + +And lo! upon that glimmering road, + In shining companies unfurled, +The trains of many a primal god, + The monsters of the elder world; +Strange creatures that, with silver wings, + Scarce touched the ocean's thronging floor, +The phantoms of old tales, and things + Whose shapes are known no more. + +Giants and demi-gods who once + Were dwellers of the earth and sea, +And they who from Deucalion's stones, + Rose men without an infancy; +Beings on whose majestic lids + Time's solemn secrets seemed to dwell, +Tritons and pale-limbed Nereids, + And forms of heaven and hell. + +Some who were heroes long of yore, + When the great world was hale and young; +And some whose marble lips yet pour + The murmur of an antique tongue; +Sad queens, whose names are like soft moans, + Whose griefs were written up in gold; +And some who on their silver thrones + Were goddesses of old. + +As if I had been dead indeed, + And come into some after-land, +I saw them pass me, and take heed, + And touch me with each mighty hand; +And evermore a murmurous stream, + So beautiful they seemed to me, +Not less than in a godlike dream + I trod the shining sea. + + + + +COMFORT OF THE FIELDS + + +What would'st thou have for easement after grief, + When the rude world hath used thee with despite, + And care sits at thine elbow day and night, +Filching thy pleasures like a subtle thief? +To me, when life besets me in such wise, +'Tis sweetest to break forth, to drop the chain, + And grasp the freedom of this pleasant earth, + To roam in idleness and sober mirth, +Through summer airs and summer lands, and drain +The comfort of wide fields unto tired eyes. + +By hills and waters, farms and solitudes, + To wander by the day with wilful feet; + Through fielded valleys wide with yellowing wheat; +Along gray roads that run between deep woods, +Murmurous and cool; through hallowed slopes of pine, + Where the long daylight dreams, unpierced, unstirred, + And only the rich-throated thrush is heard; +By lonely forest brooks that froth and shine + In bouldered crannies buried in the hills; +By broken beeches tangled with wild vine, + And log-strewn rivers murmurous with mills. + +In upland pastures, sown with gold, and sweet + With the keen perfume of the ripening grass, + Where wings of birds and filmy shadows pass, +Spread thick as stars with shining marguerite; +To haunt old fences overgrown with brier, + Muffled in vines, and hawthorns, and wild cherries, + Rank poisonous ivies, red-bunched elderberries, +And pièd blossoms to the heart's desire, + Gray mullein towering into yellow bloom, + Pink-tasseled milkweed, breathing dense perfume, +And swarthy vervain, tipped with violet fire. + +To hear at eve the bleating of far flocks, + The mud-hen's whistle from the marsh at morn; + To skirt with deafened ears and brain o'erborne +Some foam-filled rapid charging down its rocks +With iron roar of waters; far away + Across wide-reeded meres, pensive with noon, + To hear the querulous outcry of the loon; +To lie among deep rocks, and watch all day + On liquid heights the snowy clouds melt by; +Or hear from wood-capped mountain-brows the jay + Pierce the bright morning with his jibing cry. + +To feast on summer sounds; the jolted wains, + The thrasher humming from the farm near by, + The prattling cricket's intermittent cry, +The locust's rattle from the sultry lanes; +Or in the shadow of some oaken spray, + To watch, as through a mist of light and dreams, + The far-off hay-fields, where the dusty teams +Drive round and round the lessening squares of hay, + And hear upon the wind, now loud, now low, +With drowsy cadence half a summer's day, + The clatter of the reapers come and go. + +Far violet hills, horizons filmed with showers, + The murmur of cool streams, the forest's gloom, + The voices of the breathing grass, the hum +Of ancient gardens overbanked with flowers: +Thus, with a smile as golden as the dawn, + And cool fair fingers radiantly divine, + The mighty mother brings us in her hand, +For all tired eyes and foreheads pinched and wan, +Her restful cup, her beaker of bright wine: + Drink, and be filled, and ye shall understand! + + + + +AT THE FERRY + + +On such a day the shrunken stream + Spends its last water and runs dry; +Clouds like far turrets in a dream + Stand baseless in the burning sky. +On such a day at every rod + The toilers in the hay-field halt, +With dripping brows, and the parched sod + Yields to the crushing foot like salt. + +But here a little wind astir, + Seen waterward in jetting lines, +From yonder hillside topped with fir + Comes pungent with the breath of pines; +And here when all the noon hangs still, + White-hot upon the city tiles, +A perfume and a wintry chill + Breathe from the yellow lumber-piles. + +And all day long there falls a blur + Of noises upon listless ears, +The rumble of the trams, the stir + Of barges at the clacking piers; +The champ of wheels, the crash of steam, + And ever, without change or stay, +The drone, as through a troubled dream, + Of waters falling far away. + +A tug-boat up the farther shore + Half pants, half whistles, in her draught; +The cadence of a creaking oar + Falls drowsily; a corded raft +Creeps slowly in the noonday gleam, + And wheresoe'er a shadow sleeps +The men lie by, or half a-dream, + Stand leaning at the idle sweeps. + +And all day long in the quiet bay + The eddying amber depths retard, +And hold, as in a ring, at play, + The heavy saw-logs notched and scarred; +And yonder between cape and shoal, + Where the long currents swing and shift, +An aged punt-man with his pole + Is searching in the parted drift. + +At moments from the distant glare + The murmur of a railway steals +Round yonder jutting point the air + Is beaten with the puff of wheels; +And here at hand an open mill, + Strong clamor at perpetual drive, +With changing chant, now hoarse, now shrill, + Keeps dinning like a mighty hive. + +A furnace over field and mead, + The rounding noon hangs hard and white; +Into the gathering heats recede + The hollows of the Chelsea height; +But under all to one quiet tune, + A spirit in cool depths withdrawn, +With logs, and dust, and wrack bestrewn, + The stately river journeys on. + +I watch the swinging currents go + Far down to where, enclosed and piled, +The logs crowd, and the Gatineau + Comes rushing from the northern wild. +I see the long low point, where close + The shore-lines, and the waters end, +I watch the barges pass in rows + That vanish at the tapering bend. + +I see as at the noon's pale core-- + A shadow that lifts clear and floats-- +The cabin'd village round the shore, + The landing and the fringe of boats; +Faint films of smoke that curl and wreathe, + And upward with the like desire +The vast gray church that seems to breathe + In heaven with its dreaming spire. + +And there the last blue boundaries rise, + That guard within their compass furled +This plot of earth: beyond them lies + The mystery of the echoing world; +And still my thought goes on, and yields + New vision and new joy to me, +Far peopled hills, and ancient fields, + And cities by the crested sea. + +I see no more the barges pass, + Nor mark the ripple round the pier, +And all the uproar, mass on mass, + Falls dead upon a vacant ear. +Beyond the tumult of the mills, + And all the city's sound and strife, +Beyond the waste, beyond the hills, + I look far out and dream of life. + + + + +SEPTEMBER + + +Now hath the summer reached her golden close, + And, lost amid her corn-fields, bright of soul, +Scarcely perceives from her divine repose + How near, how swift, the inevitable goal: +Still, still, she smiles, though from her careless feet + The bounty and the fruitful strength are gone, + And through the soft long wondering days goes on +The silent sere decadence sad and sweet. + +The kingbird and the pensive thrush are fled, + Children of light, too fearful of the gloom; +The sun falls low, the secret word is said, + The mouldering woods grow silent as the tomb; +Even the fields have lost their sovereign grace, + The cone-flower and the marguerite; and no more, + Across the river's shadow-haunted floor, +The paths of skimming swallows interlace. + +Already in the outland wilderness + The forests echo with unwonted dins; +In clamorous gangs the gathering woodmen press + Northward, and the stern winter's toil begins. +Around the long low shanties, whose rough lines + Break the sealed dreams of many an unnamed lake, + Already in the frost-clear morns awake +The crash and thunder of the falling pines. + +Where the tilled earth, with all its fields set free, + Naked and yellow from the harvest lies, +By many a loft and busy granary, + The hum and tumult of the thrashers rise; +There the tanned farmers labor without slack, + Till twilight deepens round the spouting mill, + Feeding the loosened sheaves, or with fierce will, +Pitching waist-deep upon the dusty stack. + +Still a brief while, ere the old year quite pass, + Our wandering steps and wistful eyes shall greet +The leaf, the water, the belovèd grass; + Still from these haunts and this accustomed seat +I see the wood-wrapt city, swept with light, + The blue long-shadowed distance, and, between, + The dotted farm-lands with their parcelled green, +The dark pine forest and the watchful height. + +I see the broad rough meadow stretched away + Into the crystal sunshine, wastes of sod, +Acres of withered vervain, purple-gray, + Branches of aster, groves of goldenrod; +And yonder, toward the sunlit summit, strewn + With shadowy boulders, crowned and swathed with weed, + Stand ranks of silken thistles, blown to seed, +Long silver fleeces shining like the noon. + +In far-off russet corn-fields, where the dry + Gray shocks stand peaked and withering, half concealed +In the rough earth, the orange pumpkins lie, + Full-ribbed; and in the windless pasture-field +The sleek red horses o'er the sun-warmed ground + Stand pensively about in companies, + While all around them from the motionless trees +The long clean shadows sleep without a sound. + +Under cool elm-trees floats the distant stream, + Moveless as air; and o'er the vast warm earth +The fathomless daylight seems to stand and dream, + A liquid cool elixir--all its girth +Bound with faint haze, a frail transparency, + Whose lucid purple barely veils and fills + The utmost valleys and the thin last hills, +Nor mars one whit their perfect clarity. + +Thus without grief the golden days go by, + So soft we scarcely notice how they wend, +And like a smile half happy, or a sigh, + The summer passes to her quiet end; +And soon, too soon, around the cumbered eaves + Sly frosts shall take the creepers by surprise, + And through the wind-touched reddening woods shall rise +October with the rain of ruined leaves. + + + + +A RE-ASSURANCE + + +With what doubting eyes, oh sparrow, + Thou regardest me, +Underneath yon spray of yarrow, + Dipping cautiously. + +Fear me not, oh little sparrow, + Bathe and never fear, +For to me both pool and yarrow + And thyself are dear. + + + + +THE POET'S POSSESSION + + +Think not, oh master of the well-tilled field, +This earth is only thine; for after thee, +When all is sown and gathered and put by, +Comes the grave poet with creative eye, +And from these silent acres and clean plots, +Bids with his wand the fancied after-yield, +A second tilth and second harvest, be, +The crop of images and curious thoughts. + + + + +AN AUTUMN LANDSCAPE + + +No wind there is that either pipes or moans; + The fields are cold and still; the sky + Is covered with a blue-gray sheet + Of motionless cloud; and at my feet + The river, curling softly by, +Whispers and dimples round its quiet gray stones. + +Along the chill green slope that dips and heaves + The road runs rough and silent, lined + With plum-trees, misty and blue-gray, + And poplars pallid as the day, + In masses spectral, undefined, +Pale greenish stems half hid in dry gray leaves. + +And on beside the river's sober edge + A long fresh field lies black. Beyond, + Low thickets gray and reddish stand, + Stroked white with birch; and near at hand, + Over a little steel-smooth pond, +Hang multitudes of thin and withering sedge. + +Across a waste and solitary rise + A ploughman urges his dull team, + A stooped gray figure with prone brow + That plunges bending to the plough + With strong, uneven steps. The stream +Rings and re-echoes with his furious cries. + +Sometimes the lowing of a cow, long-drawn, + Comes from far off; and crows in strings + Pass on the upper silences. + A flock of small gray goldfinches, + Flown down with silvery twitterings, +Rustle among the birch-cones and are gone. + +This day the season seems like one that heeds, + With fixèd ear and lifted hand, + All moods that yet are known on earth, + All motions that have faintest birth, + If haply she may understand +The utmost inward sense of all her deeds. + + + + +IN NOVEMBER + + +With loitering step and quiet eye, +Beneath the low November sky, +I wandered in the woods, and found +A clearing, where the broken ground +Was scattered with black stumps and briers, +And the old wreck of forest fires. +It was a bleak and sandy spot, +And, all about, the vacant plot +Was peopled and inhabited +By scores of mulleins long since dead. +A silent and forsaken brood +In that mute opening of the wood, +So shrivelled and so thin they were, +So gray, so haggard, and austere, +Not plants at all they seemed to me, +But rather some spare company +Of hermit folk, who long ago, +Wandering in bodies to and fro, +Had chanced upon this lonely way, +And rested thus, till death one day +Surprised them at their compline prayer, +And left them standing lifeless there. + +There was no sound about the wood +Save the wind's secret stir. I stood +Among the mullein-stalks as still +As if myself had grown to be +One of their sombre company, +A body without wish or will. +And as I stood, quite suddenly, +Down from a furrow in the sky +The sun shone out a little space +Across that silent sober place, +Over the sand heaps and brown sod, +The mulleins and dead goldenrod, +And passed beyond the thickets gray, +And lit the fallen leaves that lay, +Level and deep within the wood, +A rustling yellow multitude. + +And all around me the thin light, +So sere, so melancholy bright, +Fell like the half-reflected gleam +Or shadow of some former dream; +A moment's golden revery +Poured out on every plant and tree +A semblance of weird joy, or less, +A sort of spectral happiness; +And I, too, standing idly there, +With muffled hands in the chill air, +Felt the warm glow about my feet, +And shuddering betwixt cold and heat, +Drew my thoughts closer, like a cloak, +While something in my blood awoke, +A nameless and unnatural cheer, +A pleasure secret and austere. + + + + +BY AN AUTUMN STREAM + + +Now overhead, +Where the rivulet loiters and stops, +The bittersweet hangs from the tops +Of the alders and cherries +Its bunches of beautiful berries, +Orange and red. + +And the snowbirds flee, +Tossing up on the far brown field, +Now flashing and now concealed, +Like fringes of spray +That vanish and gleam on the gray +Field of the sea. + +Flickering light, +Come the last of the leaves down borne, +And patches of pale white corn +In the wind complain, +Like the slow rustle of rain +Noticed by night. + +Withered and thinned, +The sentinel mullein looms, +With the pale gray shadowy plumes +Of the goldenrod; +And the milkweed opens its pod, +Tempting the wind. + +Aloft on the hill, +A cloudrift opens and shines +Through a break in its gorget of pines, +And it dreams at my feet +In a sad, silvery sheet, +Utterly still. + +All things that be +Seem plunged into silence, distraught, +By some stern, some necessitous thought: +It wraps and enthralls +Marsh, meadow, and forest; and falls +Also on me. + + + + +SNOWBIRDS + + +Along the narrow sandy height + I watch them swiftly come and go, + Or round the leafless wood, + Like flurries of wind-driven snow, +Revolving in perpetual flight, + A changing multitude. + +Nearer and nearer still they sway, + And, scattering in a circled sweep, + Rush down without a sound; + And now I see them peer and peep, +Across yon level bleak and gray, + Searching the frozen ground,-- + +Until a little wind upheaves, + And makes a sudden rustling there, + And then they drop their play, + Flash up into the sunless air, +And like a flight of silver leaves + Swirl round and sweep away. + + + + +SNOW + + +White are the far-off plains, and white + The fading forests grow; +The wind dies out along the height, + And denser still the snow, +A gathering weight on roof and tree, + Falls down scarce audibly. + +The road before me smooths and fills + Apace, and all about +The fences dwindle, and the hills + Are blotted slowly out; +The naked trees loom spectrally + Into the dim white sky. + +The meadows and far-sheeted streams + Lie still without a sound; +Like some soft minister of dreams + The snow-fall hoods me round; +In wood and water, earth and air, + A silence everywhere. + +Save when at lonely intervals + Some farmer's sleigh, urged on, +With rustling runners and sharp bells, + Swings by me and is gone; +Or from the empty waste I hear + A sound remote and clear; + +The barking of a dog, or call + To cattle, sharply pealed, +Borne echoing from some wayside stall + Or barnyard far a-field; +Then all is silent, and the snow + Falls, settling soft and slow. + +The evening deepens, and the gray + Folds closer earth and sky; +The world seems shrouded far away; + Its noises sleep, and I, +As secret as yon buried stream, + Plod dumbly on, and dream. + + + + +SUNSET + + +From this windy bridge at rest, +In some former curious hour, +We have watched the city's hue, +All along the orange west, +Cupola and pointed tower, +Darken into solid blue. + +Tho' the biting north wind breaks +Full across this drifted hold, +Let us stand with icèd cheeks +Watching westward as of old; + +Past the violet mountain-head +To the farthest fringe of pine, +Where far off the purple-red +Narrows to a dusky line, +And the last pale splendours die +Slowly from the olive sky; + +Till the thin clouds wear away +Into threads of purple-gray, +And the sudden stars between +Brighten in the pallid green; + +Till above the spacious east, +Slow returnèd one by one, +Like pale prisoners released +From the dungeons of the sun, +Capella and her train appear +In the glittering Charioteer; + +Till the rounded moon shall grow +Great above the eastern snow, +Shining into burnished gold; +And the silver earth outrolled, +In the misty yellow light, +Shall take on the width of night. + + + + +WINTER-STORE + + +Subtly conscious, all awake, +Let us clear our eyes, and break +Through the cloudy chrysalis, +See the wonder as it is. +Down a narrow alley, blind, +Touch and vision, heart and mind, +Turned sharply inward, still we plod, +Till the calmly smiling god +Leaves us, and our spirits grow +More thin, more acrid, as we go. +Creeping by the sullen wall, +We forego the power to see, +The threads that bind us to the All, +God or the Immensity; +Whereof on the eternal road +Man is but a passing mode. + +Too blind we are, too little see +Of the magic pageantry, +Every minute, every hour, +From the cloudflake to the flower, +Forever old, forever strange, +Issuing in perpetual change +From the rainbow gates of Time. + +But he who through this common air +Surely knows the great and fair, +What is lovely, what sublime, +Becomes in an increasing span, +One with earth and one with man, +One, despite these mortal scars, +With the planets and the stars; +And Nature from her holy place, +Bending with unveilèd face, +Fills him in her divine employ +With her own majestic joy. + +Up the fielded slopes at morn, +Where light wefts of shadow pass, +Films upon the bending corn, +I shall sweep the purple grass. +Sun-crowned heights and mossy woods, +And the outer solitudes, +Mountain-valleys, dim with pine, +Shall be home and haunt of mine. +I shall search in crannied hollows, +Where the sunlight scarcely follows, +And the secret forest brook +Murmurs, and from nook to nook +Forever downward curls and cools, +Frothing in the bouldered pools. + +Many a noon shall find me laid +In the pungent balsam shade, +Where sharp breezes spring and shiver +On some deep rough-coasted river, +And the plangent waters come, +Amber-hued and streaked with foam; +Where beneath the sunburnt hills +All day long the crowded mills +With remorseless champ and scream +Overlord the sluicing stream, + And the rapids' iron roar +Hammers at the forest's core; +Where corded rafts creep slowly on, +Glittering in the noonday sun, +And the tawny river-dogs, +Shepherding the branded logs, +Bind and heave with cadenced cry; +Where the blackened tugs go by, +Panting hard and straining slow, +Laboring at the weighty tow, +Flat-nosed barges all in trim, +Creeping in long cumbrous line, +Loaded to the water's brim +With the clean, cool-scented pine. + +Perhaps in some low meadow-land, +Stretching wide on either hand, +I shall see the belted bees +Rocking with the tricksy breeze +In the spired meadow-sweet, +Or with eager trampling feet +Burrowing in the boneset blooms, +Treading out the dry perfumes. +Where sun-hot hay-fields newly mown +Climb the hillside ruddy brown, +I shall see the haymakers, +While the noonday scarcely stirs, +Brown of neck and booted gray, +Tossing up the rustling hay, +While the hay-racks bend and rock, +As they take each scented cock, +Jolting over dip and rise; +And the wavering butterflies +O'er the spaces brown and bare +Light and wander here and there. + +I shall stray by many a stream, +Where the half-shut lilies gleam, +Napping out the sultry days +In the quiet secluded bays; +Where the tasseled rushes tower, +O'er the purple pickerel-flower, +And the floating dragon-fly-- +Azure glint and crystal gleam-- +Watches o'er the burnished stream +With his eye of ebony; +Where the bull-frog lolls at rest +On his float of lily-leaves, +That the swaying water weaves, +And distends his yellow breast, +Lowing out from shore to shore +With a hollow vibrant roar; +Where the softest wind that blows, +As it lightly comes and goes, +O'er the jungled river meads, +Stirs a whisper in the reeds, +And wakes the crowded bull-rushes +From their stately reveries, +Flashing through their long-leaved hordes +Like a brandishing of swords; +There, too, the frost-like arrow-flowers +Tremble to the golden core, +Children of enchanted hours, +Whom the rustling river bore +In the night's bewildered noon, +Woven of water and the moon. + +I shall hear the grasshoppers +From the parchèd grass rehearse, +And with drowsy note prolong +Evermore the same thin song. +I shall hear the crickets tell +Stories by the humming well, +And mark the locust, with quaint eyes, +Caper in his cloak of gray +Like a jester in disguise +Rattling by the dusty way. + +I shall dream by upland fences, +Where the season's wealth condenses +Over many a weedy wreck, +Wild, uncared-for, desert places, +That sovereign Beauty loves to deck +With her softest, dearest graces. +There the long year dreams in quiet, +And the summer's strength runs riot. +Shall I not remember these, +Deep in winter reveries? +Berried brier and thistle-bloom, +And milkweed with its dense perfume; +Slender vervain towering up +In a many-branchèd cup, +Like a candlestick, each spire +Kindled with a violet fire; +Matted creepers and wild cherries, +Purple-bunchèd elderberries, +And on scanty plots of sod +Groves of branchy goldenrod. + +What though autumn mornings now, +Winterward with glittering brow, +Stiffen in the silver grass; +And what though robins flock and pass, +With subdued and sober call, +To the old year's funeral; +Though October's crimson leaves +Rustle at the gusty door, +And the tempest round the eaves +Alternate with pipe and roar; +I sit, as erst, unharmed, secure, +Conscious that my store is sure, +Whatsoe'er the fencèd fields, +Or the untilled forest yields +Of unhurt remembrances, +Or thoughts, far-glimpsed, half-followed, these +I have reaped and laid away, +A treasure of unwinnowed grain, +To the garner packed and gray +Gathered without toil or strain. + +And when the darker days shall come, +And the fields are white and dumb; +When our fires are half in vain, +And the crystal starlight weaves +Mockeries of summer leaves, +Pictured on the icy pane; +When the high aurora gleams +Far above the Arctic streams +Like a line of shifting spears, +And the broad pine-circled meres, +Glimmering in that spectral light, +Thunder through the northern night; +Then within the bolted door +I shall con my summer store; +Though the fences scarcely show +Black above the drifted snow, +Though the icy sweeping wind +Whistle in the empty tree, +Safe within the sheltered mind, +I shall feed on memory. + +Yet across the windy night +Comes upon its wings a cry; +Fashioned forms and modes take flight, +And a vision sad and high +Of the laboring world down there, +Where the lights burn red and warm, +Pricks my soul with sudden stare, +Glowing through the veils of storm. +In the city yonder sleep +Those who smile and those who weep, +Those whose lips are set with care, +Those whose brows are smooth and fair; +Mourners whom the dawning light +Shall grapple with an old distress; +Lovers folded at midnight +In their bridal happiness; +Pale watchers by belovèd beds, +Fallen a-drowse with nodding heads, +Whom sleep captured by surprise, +With the circles round their eyes; +Maidens with quiet-taken breath, +Dreaming of enchanted bowers; +Old men with the mask of death; +Little children soft as flowers; +Those who wake wild-eyed and start +In some madness of the heart; +Those whose lips and brows of stone +Evil thoughts have graven upon, +Shade by shade and line by line, +Refashioning what was once divine. + +All these sleep, and through the night, +Comes a passion and a cry, +With a blind sorrow and a might, +I know not whence, I know not why, +A something I cannot control, +A nameless hunger of the soul. +It holds me fast. In vain, in vain, +I remember how of old +I saw the ruddy race of men, +Through the glittering world outrolled, +A gay-smiling multitude, +All immortal, all divine, +Treading in a wreathèd line +By a pathway through a wood. + + + + +THE SUN CUP + + +The earth is the cup of the sun, +That he filleth at morning with wine, +With the warm, strong wine of his might +From the vintage of gold and of light, +Fills it, and makes it divine. + +And at night when his journey is done, +At the gate of his radiant hall, +He setteth his lips to the brim, +With a long last look of his eye, +And lifts it and draineth it dry, +Drains till he leaveth it all +Empty and hollow and dim. + +And then, as he passes to sleep, +Still full of the feats that he did, +Long ago in Olympian wars, +He closes it down with the sweep +Of its slow-turning luminous lid, +Its cover of darkness and stars, +Wrought once by Hephaestus of old +With violet and vastness and gold. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lyrics of Earth, by Archibald Lampman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYRICS OF EARTH *** + +***** This file should be named 12664-8.txt or 12664-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/2/6/6/12664/ + +Produced by Andrew Sly. + +Thank you to Canadian Poetry [http://www.canadianpoetry.ca] for +providing the source text. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.net + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/old/12664-8.zip b/old/old/12664-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e9d13c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/12664-8.zip diff --git a/old/old/12664.txt b/old/old/12664.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a613ff1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/12664.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2095 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lyrics of Earth, by Archibald Lampman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: Lyrics of Earth + +Author: Archibald Lampman + +Release Date: June 19, 2004 [EBook #12664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYRICS OF EARTH *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Sly. + +Thank you to Canadian Poetry [http://www.canadianpoetry.ca] for +providing the source text. + + + + + +Lyrics of Earth + +By Archibald Lampman + + + +First published in Boston by Copeland and Day, 1895. + + + +To my Mother + + +Mother, to whose valiant will + Battling long ago, +What the heaping years fulfil, + Light and song, I owe; +Send my little book afield, + Fronting praise or blame +With the shining flag and shield + Of your name. + + + +CONTENTS + +The Sweetness of Life +God-Speed to the Snow +April in the Hills +Forest Moods +The Return of the Year +Favorites of Pan +The Meadow +In May +Life and Nature +With the Night +June +Distance +The Bird and the Hour +After Rain +Cloud-Break +The Moon-Path +Comfort of the Fields +At the Ferry +September +A Re-assurance +The Poet's Possession +An Autumn Landscape +In November +By an Autumn Stream +Snowbirds +Snow +Sunset +Winter-Store +The Sun Cup + + + + +THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE + + +It fell on a day I was happy, + And the winds, the concave sky, +The flowers and the beasts in the meadow + Seemed happy even as I; +And I stretched my hands to the meadow, + To the bird, the beast, the tree: +"Why are ye all so happy?" + I cried, and they answered me. + +What sayest thou, Oh meadow, + That stretchest so wide, so far, +That none can say how many + Thy misty marguerites are? +And what say ye, red roses, + That o'er the sun-blanched wall +From your high black-shadowed trellis + Like flame or blood-drops fall? + "We are born, we are reared, and we linger + A various space and die; + We dream, and are bright and happy, + But we cannot answer why." + +What sayest thou, Oh shadow, + That from the dreaming hill +All down the broadening valley + Liest so sharp and still? +And thou, Oh murmuring brooklet, + Whereby in the noonday gleam +The loosestrife burns like ruby, + And the branched asters dream? + "We are born, we are reared, and we linger + A various space and die; + We dream and are very happy, + But we cannot answer why." + +And then of myself I questioned, + That like a ghost the while +Stood from me and calmly answered, + With slow and curious smile: +"Thou art born as the flowers, and wilt linger + Thine own short space and die; +Thou dream'st and art strangely happy, + But thou canst not answer why." + + + + +GOD-SPEED TO THE SNOW + + +March is slain; the keen winds fly; +Nothing more is thine to do; +April kisses thee good-bye; +Thou must haste and follow too; +Silent friend that guarded well +Withered things to make us glad, +Shyest friend that could not tell +Half the kindly thought he had. +Haste thee, speed thee, O kind snow; +Down the dripping valleys go, +From the fields and gleaming meadows, +Where the slaying hours behold thee, +From the forests whose slim shadows, +Brown and leafless cannot fold thee, +Through the cedar lands aflame +With gold light that cleaves and quivers, +Songs that winter may not tame, +Drone of pines and laugh of rivers. +May thy passing joyous be +To thy father, the great sea, +For the sun is getting stronger; +Earth hath need of thee no longer; +Go, kind snow, God-speed to thee! + + + + +APRIL IN THE HILLS + + +To-day the world is wide and fair +With sunny fields of lucid air, +And waters dancing everywhere; + The snow is almost gone; +The noon is builded high with light, +And over heaven's liquid height, +In steady fleets serene and white, + The happy clouds go on. + +The channels run, the bare earth steams, +And every hollow rings and gleams +With jetting falls and dashing streams; + The rivers burst and fill; +The fields are full of little lakes, +And when the romping wind awakes +The water ruffles blue and shakes, + And the pines roar on the hill. + +The crows go by, a noisy throng; +About the meadows all day long +The shore-lark drops his brittle song; + And up the leafless tree +The nut-hatch runs, and nods, and clings; +The bluebird dips with flashing wings, +The robin flutes, the sparrow sings, + And the swallows float and flee. + +I break the spirit's cloudy bands, +A wanderer in enchanted lands, +I feel the sun upon my hands; + And far from care and strife +The broad earth bids me forth. I rise +With lifted brow and upward eyes. +I bathe my spirit in blue skies, + And taste the springs of life. + +I feel the tumult of new birth; +I waken with the wakening earth; +I match the bluebird in her mirth; + And wild with wind and sun, +A treasurer of immortal days, +I roam the glorious world with praise, +The hillsides and the woodland ways, + Till earth and I are one. + + + + +FOREST MOODS + + +There is singing of birds in the deep wet woods, +In the heart of the listening solitudes, +Pewees, and thrushes, and sparrows, not few, +And all the notes of their throats are true. + +The thrush from the innermost ash takes on +A tender dream of the treasured and gone; +But the sparrow singeth with pride and cheer +Of the might and light of the present and here. + +There is shining of flowers in the deep wet woods, +In the heart of the sensitive solitudes, +The roseate bell and the lily are there, +And every leaf of their sheaf is fair. + +Careless and bold, without dream of woe, +The trilliums scatter their flags of snow; +But the pale wood-daffodil covers her face, +Agloom with the doom of a sorrowful race. + + + + +THE RETURN OF THE YEAR + + +Again the warm bare earth, the noon + That hangs upon her healing scars, +The midnight round, the great red moon, + The mother with her brood of stars, + +The mist-rack and the wakening rain + Blown soft in many a forest way, +The yellowing elm-trees, and again + The blood-root in its sheath of gray. + +The vesper-sparrow's song, the stress + Of yearning notes that gush and stream, +The lyric joy, the tenderness, + And once again the dream! the dream! + +A touch of far-off joy and power, + A something it is life to learn, +Comes back to earth, and one short hour + The glamours of the gods return. + +This life's old mood and cult of care + Falls smitten by an older truth, +And the gray world wins back to her + The rapture of her vanished youth. + +Dead thoughts revive, and he that heeds + Shall hear, as by a spirit led, +A song among the golden reeds: + "The gods are vanished but not dead!" + +For one short hour, unseen yet near, + They haunt us, a forgotten mood, +A glory upon mead and mere, + A magic in the leafless wood. + +At morning we shall catch the glow + Of Dian's quiver on the hill, +And somewhere in the glades I know + That Pan is at his piping still. + + + + +FAVORITES OF PAN + + +Once, long ago, before the gods + Had left this earth, by stream and forest glade, +Where the first plough upturned the clinging sods, + Or the lost shepherd strayed, + +Often to the tired listener's ear + There came at noonday or beneath the stars +A sound, he knew not whence, so sweet and clear, + That all his aches and scars + +And every brooded bitterness, + Fallen asunder from his soul took flight, +Like mist or darkness yielding to the press + Of an unnamed delight,-- + +A sudden brightness of the heart, + A magic fire drawn down from Paradise, +That rent the cloud with golden gleam apart,-- + And far before his eyes + +The loveliness and calm of earth + Lay like a limitless dream remote and strange, +The joy, the strife, the triumph and the mirth, + And the enchanted change; + +And so he followed the sweet sound, + Till faith had traversed her appointed span, +And murmured as he pressed the sacred ground: + "It is the note of Pan!" + +Now though no more by marsh or stream + Or dewy forest sounds the secret reed-- +For Pan is gone--Ah yet, the infinite dream + Still lives for them that heed. + +In April, when the turning year + Regains its pensive youth, and a soft breath +And amorous influence over marsh and mere + Dissolves the grasp of death, + +To them that are in love with life, + Wandering like children with untroubled eyes, +Far from the noise of cities and the strife, + Strange flute-like voices rise + +At noon and in the quiet of the night + From every watery waste; and in that hour +The same strange spell, the same unnamed delight, + Enfolds them in its power. + +An old-world joyousness supreme, + The warmth and glow of an immortal balm, +The mood-touch of the gods, the endless dream, + The high lethean calm. + +They see, wide on the eternal way, + The services of earth, the life of man; +And, listening to the magic cry they say: + "It is the note of Pan!" + +For, long ago, when the new strains + Of hostile hymns and conquering faiths grew keen, +And the old gods from their deserted fanes, + Fled silent and unseen, + +So, too, the goat-foot Pan, not less + Sadly obedient to the mightier hand, +Cut him new reeds, and in a sore distress + Passed out from land to land; + +And lingering by each haunt he knew, + Of fount or sinuous stream or grassy marge, +He set the syrinx to his lips, and blew + A note divinely large; + +And all around him on the wet + Cool earth the frogs came up, and with a smile +He took them in his hairy hands, and set + His mouth to theirs awhile, + +And blew into their velvet throats; + And ever from that hour the frogs repeat +The murmur of Pan's pipes, the notes, + And answers strange and sweet; + +And they that hear them are renewed + By knowledge in some god-like touch conveyed, +Entering again into the eternal mood, + Wherein the world was made. + + + + +THE MEADOW + + +Here when the cloudless April days begin, + And the quaint crows flock thicker day by day, +Filling the forests with a pleasant din, + And the soiled snow creeps secretly away, +Comes the small busy sparrow, primed with glee, + First preacher in the naked wilderness, + Piping an end to all the long distress +From every fence and every leafless tree. + +Now with soft slight and viewless artifice + Winter's iron work is wondrously undone; +In all the little hollows cored with ice + The clear brown pools stand simmering in the sun, +Frail lucid worlds, upon whose tremulous floors + All day the wandering water-bugs at will, + Shy mariners whose oars are never still, +Voyage and dream about the heightening shores. + +The bluebird, peeping from the gnarled thorn, + Prattles upon his frolic flute, or flings, +In bounding flight across the golden morn, + An azure gleam from off his splendid wings. +Here the slim-pinioned swallows sweep and pass + Down to the far-off river; the black crow + With wise and wary visage to and fro +Settles and stalks about the withered grass. + +Here, when the murmurous May-day is half gone, + The watchful lark before my feet takes flight, +And wheeling to some lonelier field far on, + Drops with obstreperous cry; and here at night, +When the first star precedes the great red moon, + The shore-lark tinkles from the darkening field, + Somewhere, we know not, in the dusk concealed, +His little creakling and continuous tune. + +Here, too, the robins, lusty as of old, + Hunt the waste grass for forage, or prolong +From every quarter of these fields the bold, + Blithe phrases of their never-finished song. +The white-throat's distant descant with slow stress + Note after note upon the noonday falls, + Filling the leisured air at intervals +With his own mood of piercing pensiveness. + +How often from this windy upland perch, + Mine eyes have seen the forest break in bloom, +The rose-red maple and the golden birch, + The dusty yellow of the elms, the gloom +Of the tall poplar hung with tasseled black; + Ah, I have watched, till eye and ear and brain + Grew full of dreams as they, the moted plain, +The sun-steeped wood, the marsh-land at its back, + +The valley where the river wheels and fills, + Yon city glimmering in its smoky shroud, +And out at the last misty rim the hills + Blue and far off and mounded like a cloud, +And here the noisy rutted road that goes + Down the slope yonder, flanked on either side + With the smooth-furrowed fields flung black and wide, +Patched with pale water sleeping in the rows. + +So as I watched the crowded leaves expand, + The bloom break sheath, the summer's strength uprear, +In earth's great mother's heart already planned + The heaped and burgeoned plenty of the year, +Even as she from out her wintry cell + My spirit also sprang to life anew, + And day by day as the spring's bounty grew, +Its conquering joy possessed me like a spell. + +In reverie by day and midnight dream + I sought these upland fields and walked apart, +Musing on Nature, till my thought did seem + To read the very secrets of her heart; +In mooded moments earnest and sublime + I stored the themes of many a future song, + Whose substance should be Nature's, clear and strong, +Bound in a casket of majestic rhyme. + +Brave bud-like plans that never reached the fruit, + Like hers our mother's who with every hour, +Easily replenished from the sleepless root, + Covers her bosom with fresh bud and flower; +Yet I was happy as young lovers be, + Who in the season of their passion's birth + Deem that they have their utmost worship's worth, +If love be near them, just to hear and see. + + + + +IN MAY + + +Grief was my master yesternight; + To-morrow I may grieve again; + But now along the windy plain + The clouds have taken flight. + +The sowers in the furrows go; + The lusty river brimmeth on; + The curtains from the hills are gone; + The leaves are out; and lo, + +The silvery distance of the day, + The light horizons, and between + The glory of the perfect green, + The tumult of the May. + +The bobolinks at noonday sing + More softly than the softest flute, + And lightlier than the lightest lute + Their fairy tambours ring. + +The roads far off are towered with dust; + The cherry-blooms are swept and thinned; + In yonder swaying elms the wind + Is charging gust on gust. + +But here there is no stir at all; + The ministers of sun and shadow + Horde all the perfumes of the meadow + Behind a grassy wall. + +An infant rivulet wind-free + Adown the guarded hollow sets, + Over whose brink the violets + Are nodding peacefully. + +From pool to pool it prattles by; + The flashing swallows dip and pass, + Above the tufted marish grass, + And here at rest am I. + +I care not for the old distress, + Nor if to-morrow bid me moan; + To-day is mine, and I have known + An hour of blessedness. + + + + +LIFE AND NATURE + + +I passed through the gates of the city, + The streets were strange and still, +Through the doors of the open churches + The organs were moaning shrill. + +Through the doors and the great high windows + I heard the murmur of prayer, +And the sound of their solemn singing + Streamed out on the sunlit air; + +A sound of some great burden + That lay on the world's dark breast, +Of the old, and the sick, and the lonely, + And the weary that cried for rest. + +I strayed through the midst of the city + Like one distracted or mad. +"Oh, Life! Oh, Life!" I kept saying, + And the very word seemed sad. + +I passed through the gates of the city, + And I heard the small birds sing, +I laid me down in the meadows + Afar from the bell-ringing. + +In the depth and the bloom of the meadows + I lay on the earth's quiet breast, +The poplar fanned me with shadows, + And the veery sang me to rest. + +Blue, blue was the heaven above me, + And the earth green at my feet; +"Oh, Life! Oh, Life!" I kept saying, + And the very word seemed sweet. + + + + +WITH THE NIGHT + + +O doubts, dull passions, and base fears, + That harassed and oppressed the day, +Ye poor remorses and vain tears, + That shook this house of clay: + +All heaven to the western bars + Is glittering with the darker dawn; +Here with the earth, the night, the stars, + Ye have no place: begone! + + + + +JUNE + + +Long, long ago, it seems, this summer morn + That pale-browed April passed with pensive tread + Through the frore woods, and from its frost-bound bed +Woke the arbutus with her silver horn; + And now May, too, is fled, +The flower-crowned month, the merry laughing May, + With rosy feet and fingers dewy wet, +Leaving the woods and all cool gardens gay + With tulips and the scented violet. + +Gone are the wind-flower and the adder-tongue + And the sad drooping bellwort, and no more + The snowy trilliums crowd the forest's floor; +The purpling grasses are no longer young, + And summer's wide-set door +O'er the thronged hills and the broad panting earth + Lets in the torrent of the later bloom, +Haytime, and harvest, and the after mirth, + The slow soft rain, the rushing thunder plume. + +All day in garden alleys moist and dim, + The humid air is burdened with the rose; + In moss-deep woods the creamy orchid blows; +And now the vesper-sparrows' pealing hymn + From every orchard close +At eve comes flooding rich and silvery; + The daisies in great meadows swing and shine; +And with the wind a sound as of the sea + Roars in the maples and the topmost pine. + +High in the hills the solitary thrush + Tunes magically his music of fine dreams, + In briary dells, by boulder-broken streams; +And wide and far on nebulous fields aflush + The mellow morning gleams. +The orange cone-flowers purple-bossed are there, + The meadow's bold-eyed gypsies deep of hue, +And slender hawkweed tall and softly fair, + And rosy tops of fleabane veiled with dew. + +So with thronged voices and unhasting flight + The fervid hours with long return go by; + The far-heard hylas piping shrill and high +Tell the slow moments of the solemn night + With unremitting cry; +Lustrous and large out of the gathering drouth + The planets gleam; the baleful Scorpion +Trails his dim fires along the droused south; + The silent world-incrusted round moves on. + +And all the dim night long the moon's white beams + Nestle deep down in every brooding tree, + And sleeping birds, touched with a silly glee, +Waken at midnight from their blissful dreams, + And carol brokenly. +Dim surging motions and uneasy dreads + Scare the light slumber from men's busy eyes, +And parted lovers on their restless beds + Toss and yearn out, and cannot sleep for sighs. + +Oft have I striven, sweet month, to figure thee, + As dreamers of old time were wont to feign, + In living form of flesh, and striven in vain; +Yet when some sudden old-world mystery + Of passion fired my brain, +Thy shape hath flashed upon me like no dream, + Wandering with scented curls that heaped the breeze, +Or by the hollow of some reeded stream + Sitting waist-deep in white anemones; + +And even as I glimpsed thee thou wert gone, + A dream for mortal eyes too proudly coy, + Yet in thy place for subtle thought's employ +The golden magic clung, a light that shone + And filled me with thy joy. +Before me like a mist that streamed and fell + All names and shapes of antique beauty passed +In garlanded procession with the swell + Of flutes between the beechen stems; and last, + +I saw the Arcadian valley, the loved wood, + Alpheus stream divine, the sighing shore, + And through the cool green glades, awake once more, +Psyche, the white-limbed goddess, still pursued, + Fleet-footed as of yore, +The noonday ringing with her frighted peals, + Down the bright sward and through the reeds she ran, +Urged by the mountain echoes, at her heels + The hot-blown cheeks and trampling feet of Pan. + + + + +DISTANCE + + +To the distance! Ah, the distance! + Blue and broad and dim! +Peace is not in burgh or meadow, + But beyond the rim. + +Aye, beyond it, far beyond it; + Follow still my soul, +Till this earth is lost in heaven, + And thou feel'st the whole. + + + + +THE BIRD AND THE HOUR + + +The sun looks over a little hill + And floods the valley with gold-- + A torrent of gold; +And the hither field is green and still; + Beyond it a cloud outrolled, + Is glowing molten and bright; +And soon the hill, and the valley and all, + With a quiet fall, + Shall be gathered into the night. + And yet a moment more, + Out of the silent wood, + As if from the closing door +Of another world and another lovelier mood, + Hear'st thou the hermit pour-- + So sweet! so magical!-- +His golden music, ghostly beautiful. + + + + +AFTER RAIN + + +For three whole days across the sky, +In sullen packs that loomed and broke, +With flying fringes dim as smoke, +The columns of the rain went by; +At every hour the wind awoke; + The darkness passed upon the plain; + The great drops rattled at the pane. + +Now piped the wind, or far aloof +Fell to a sough remote and dull; +And all night long with rush and lull +The rain kept drumming on the roof: +I heard till ear and sense were full + The clash or silence of the leaves, + The gurgle in the creaking eaves. + +But when the fourth day came--at noon, +The darkness and the rain were by; +The sunward roofs were steaming dry; +And all the world was flecked and strewn +With shadows from a fleecy sky. + The haymakers were forth and gone, + And every rillet laughed and shone. + +Then, too, on me that loved so well +The world, despairing in her blight, +Uplifted with her least delight, +On me, as on the earth, there fell +New happiness of mirth and might; + I strode the valleys pied and still; + I climbed upon the breezy hill. + +I watched the gray hawk wheel and drop, +Sole shadow on the shining world; +I saw the mountains clothed and curled, +With forest ruffling to the top; +I saw the river's length unfurled, + Pale silver down the fruited plain, + Grown great and stately with the rain. + +Through miles of shadow and soft heat, +Where field and fallow, fence and tree, +Were all one world of greenery, +I heard the robin ringing sweet, +The sparrow piping silverly, + The thrushes at the forest's hem; + And as I went I sang with them. + + + + +CLOUD-BREAK + + +With a turn of his magical rod, +That extended and suddenly shone, +From the round of his glory some god +Looks forth and is gone. + +To the summit of heaven the clouds +Are rolling aloft like steam; +There's a break in their infinite shrouds, +And below it a gleam. +O'er the drift of the river a whiff +Comes out from the blossoming shore; +And the meadows are greening, as if +They never were green before. + +The islands are kindled with gold +And russet and emerald dye; +And the interval waters outrolled +Are more blue than the sky. +From my feet to the heart of the hills +The spirits of May intervene, +And a vapor of azure distills +Like a breath on the opaline green. + +Only a moment!--and then +The chill and the shadow decline, +On the eyes of rejuvenate men +That were wide and divine. + + + + +THE MOON-PATH + + +The full, clear moon uprose and spread + Her cold, pale splendor o'er the sea; +A light-strewn path that seemed to lead + Outward into eternity. +Between the darkness and the gleam + An old-world spell encompassed me: +Methought that in a godlike dream + I trod upon the sea. + +And lo! upon that glimmering road, + In shining companies unfurled, +The trains of many a primal god, + The monsters of the elder world; +Strange creatures that, with silver wings, + Scarce touched the ocean's thronging floor, +The phantoms of old tales, and things + Whose shapes are known no more. + +Giants and demi-gods who once + Were dwellers of the earth and sea, +And they who from Deucalion's stones, + Rose men without an infancy; +Beings on whose majestic lids + Time's solemn secrets seemed to dwell, +Tritons and pale-limbed Nereids, + And forms of heaven and hell. + +Some who were heroes long of yore, + When the great world was hale and young; +And some whose marble lips yet pour + The murmur of an antique tongue; +Sad queens, whose names are like soft moans, + Whose griefs were written up in gold; +And some who on their silver thrones + Were goddesses of old. + +As if I had been dead indeed, + And come into some after-land, +I saw them pass me, and take heed, + And touch me with each mighty hand; +And evermore a murmurous stream, + So beautiful they seemed to me, +Not less than in a godlike dream + I trod the shining sea. + + + + +COMFORT OF THE FIELDS + + +What would'st thou have for easement after grief, + When the rude world hath used thee with despite, + And care sits at thine elbow day and night, +Filching thy pleasures like a subtle thief? +To me, when life besets me in such wise, +'Tis sweetest to break forth, to drop the chain, + And grasp the freedom of this pleasant earth, + To roam in idleness and sober mirth, +Through summer airs and summer lands, and drain +The comfort of wide fields unto tired eyes. + +By hills and waters, farms and solitudes, + To wander by the day with wilful feet; + Through fielded valleys wide with yellowing wheat; +Along gray roads that run between deep woods, +Murmurous and cool; through hallowed slopes of pine, + Where the long daylight dreams, unpierced, unstirred, + And only the rich-throated thrush is heard; +By lonely forest brooks that froth and shine + In bouldered crannies buried in the hills; +By broken beeches tangled with wild vine, + And log-strewn rivers murmurous with mills. + +In upland pastures, sown with gold, and sweet + With the keen perfume of the ripening grass, + Where wings of birds and filmy shadows pass, +Spread thick as stars with shining marguerite; +To haunt old fences overgrown with brier, + Muffled in vines, and hawthorns, and wild cherries, + Rank poisonous ivies, red-bunched elderberries, +And pied blossoms to the heart's desire, + Gray mullein towering into yellow bloom, + Pink-tasseled milkweed, breathing dense perfume, +And swarthy vervain, tipped with violet fire. + +To hear at eve the bleating of far flocks, + The mud-hen's whistle from the marsh at morn; + To skirt with deafened ears and brain o'erborne +Some foam-filled rapid charging down its rocks +With iron roar of waters; far away + Across wide-reeded meres, pensive with noon, + To hear the querulous outcry of the loon; +To lie among deep rocks, and watch all day + On liquid heights the snowy clouds melt by; +Or hear from wood-capped mountain-brows the jay + Pierce the bright morning with his jibing cry. + +To feast on summer sounds; the jolted wains, + The thrasher humming from the farm near by, + The prattling cricket's intermittent cry, +The locust's rattle from the sultry lanes; +Or in the shadow of some oaken spray, + To watch, as through a mist of light and dreams, + The far-off hay-fields, where the dusty teams +Drive round and round the lessening squares of hay, + And hear upon the wind, now loud, now low, +With drowsy cadence half a summer's day, + The clatter of the reapers come and go. + +Far violet hills, horizons filmed with showers, + The murmur of cool streams, the forest's gloom, + The voices of the breathing grass, the hum +Of ancient gardens overbanked with flowers: +Thus, with a smile as golden as the dawn, + And cool fair fingers radiantly divine, + The mighty mother brings us in her hand, +For all tired eyes and foreheads pinched and wan, +Her restful cup, her beaker of bright wine: + Drink, and be filled, and ye shall understand! + + + + +AT THE FERRY + + +On such a day the shrunken stream + Spends its last water and runs dry; +Clouds like far turrets in a dream + Stand baseless in the burning sky. +On such a day at every rod + The toilers in the hay-field halt, +With dripping brows, and the parched sod + Yields to the crushing foot like salt. + +But here a little wind astir, + Seen waterward in jetting lines, +From yonder hillside topped with fir + Comes pungent with the breath of pines; +And here when all the noon hangs still, + White-hot upon the city tiles, +A perfume and a wintry chill + Breathe from the yellow lumber-piles. + +And all day long there falls a blur + Of noises upon listless ears, +The rumble of the trams, the stir + Of barges at the clacking piers; +The champ of wheels, the crash of steam, + And ever, without change or stay, +The drone, as through a troubled dream, + Of waters falling far away. + +A tug-boat up the farther shore + Half pants, half whistles, in her draught; +The cadence of a creaking oar + Falls drowsily; a corded raft +Creeps slowly in the noonday gleam, + And wheresoe'er a shadow sleeps +The men lie by, or half a-dream, + Stand leaning at the idle sweeps. + +And all day long in the quiet bay + The eddying amber depths retard, +And hold, as in a ring, at play, + The heavy saw-logs notched and scarred; +And yonder between cape and shoal, + Where the long currents swing and shift, +An aged punt-man with his pole + Is searching in the parted drift. + +At moments from the distant glare + The murmur of a railway steals +Round yonder jutting point the air + Is beaten with the puff of wheels; +And here at hand an open mill, + Strong clamor at perpetual drive, +With changing chant, now hoarse, now shrill, + Keeps dinning like a mighty hive. + +A furnace over field and mead, + The rounding noon hangs hard and white; +Into the gathering heats recede + The hollows of the Chelsea height; +But under all to one quiet tune, + A spirit in cool depths withdrawn, +With logs, and dust, and wrack bestrewn, + The stately river journeys on. + +I watch the swinging currents go + Far down to where, enclosed and piled, +The logs crowd, and the Gatineau + Comes rushing from the northern wild. +I see the long low point, where close + The shore-lines, and the waters end, +I watch the barges pass in rows + That vanish at the tapering bend. + +I see as at the noon's pale core-- + A shadow that lifts clear and floats-- +The cabin'd village round the shore, + The landing and the fringe of boats; +Faint films of smoke that curl and wreathe, + And upward with the like desire +The vast gray church that seems to breathe + In heaven with its dreaming spire. + +And there the last blue boundaries rise, + That guard within their compass furled +This plot of earth: beyond them lies + The mystery of the echoing world; +And still my thought goes on, and yields + New vision and new joy to me, +Far peopled hills, and ancient fields, + And cities by the crested sea. + +I see no more the barges pass, + Nor mark the ripple round the pier, +And all the uproar, mass on mass, + Falls dead upon a vacant ear. +Beyond the tumult of the mills, + And all the city's sound and strife, +Beyond the waste, beyond the hills, + I look far out and dream of life. + + + + +SEPTEMBER + + +Now hath the summer reached her golden close, + And, lost amid her corn-fields, bright of soul, +Scarcely perceives from her divine repose + How near, how swift, the inevitable goal: +Still, still, she smiles, though from her careless feet + The bounty and the fruitful strength are gone, + And through the soft long wondering days goes on +The silent sere decadence sad and sweet. + +The kingbird and the pensive thrush are fled, + Children of light, too fearful of the gloom; +The sun falls low, the secret word is said, + The mouldering woods grow silent as the tomb; +Even the fields have lost their sovereign grace, + The cone-flower and the marguerite; and no more, + Across the river's shadow-haunted floor, +The paths of skimming swallows interlace. + +Already in the outland wilderness + The forests echo with unwonted dins; +In clamorous gangs the gathering woodmen press + Northward, and the stern winter's toil begins. +Around the long low shanties, whose rough lines + Break the sealed dreams of many an unnamed lake, + Already in the frost-clear morns awake +The crash and thunder of the falling pines. + +Where the tilled earth, with all its fields set free, + Naked and yellow from the harvest lies, +By many a loft and busy granary, + The hum and tumult of the thrashers rise; +There the tanned farmers labor without slack, + Till twilight deepens round the spouting mill, + Feeding the loosened sheaves, or with fierce will, +Pitching waist-deep upon the dusty stack. + +Still a brief while, ere the old year quite pass, + Our wandering steps and wistful eyes shall greet +The leaf, the water, the beloved grass; + Still from these haunts and this accustomed seat +I see the wood-wrapt city, swept with light, + The blue long-shadowed distance, and, between, + The dotted farm-lands with their parcelled green, +The dark pine forest and the watchful height. + +I see the broad rough meadow stretched away + Into the crystal sunshine, wastes of sod, +Acres of withered vervain, purple-gray, + Branches of aster, groves of goldenrod; +And yonder, toward the sunlit summit, strewn + With shadowy boulders, crowned and swathed with weed, + Stand ranks of silken thistles, blown to seed, +Long silver fleeces shining like the noon. + +In far-off russet corn-fields, where the dry + Gray shocks stand peaked and withering, half concealed +In the rough earth, the orange pumpkins lie, + Full-ribbed; and in the windless pasture-field +The sleek red horses o'er the sun-warmed ground + Stand pensively about in companies, + While all around them from the motionless trees +The long clean shadows sleep without a sound. + +Under cool elm-trees floats the distant stream, + Moveless as air; and o'er the vast warm earth +The fathomless daylight seems to stand and dream, + A liquid cool elixir--all its girth +Bound with faint haze, a frail transparency, + Whose lucid purple barely veils and fills + The utmost valleys and the thin last hills, +Nor mars one whit their perfect clarity. + +Thus without grief the golden days go by, + So soft we scarcely notice how they wend, +And like a smile half happy, or a sigh, + The summer passes to her quiet end; +And soon, too soon, around the cumbered eaves + Sly frosts shall take the creepers by surprise, + And through the wind-touched reddening woods shall rise +October with the rain of ruined leaves. + + + + +A RE-ASSURANCE + + +With what doubting eyes, oh sparrow, + Thou regardest me, +Underneath yon spray of yarrow, + Dipping cautiously. + +Fear me not, oh little sparrow, + Bathe and never fear, +For to me both pool and yarrow + And thyself are dear. + + + + +THE POET'S POSSESSION + + +Think not, oh master of the well-tilled field, +This earth is only thine; for after thee, +When all is sown and gathered and put by, +Comes the grave poet with creative eye, +And from these silent acres and clean plots, +Bids with his wand the fancied after-yield, +A second tilth and second harvest, be, +The crop of images and curious thoughts. + + + + +AN AUTUMN LANDSCAPE + + +No wind there is that either pipes or moans; + The fields are cold and still; the sky + Is covered with a blue-gray sheet + Of motionless cloud; and at my feet + The river, curling softly by, +Whispers and dimples round its quiet gray stones. + +Along the chill green slope that dips and heaves + The road runs rough and silent, lined + With plum-trees, misty and blue-gray, + And poplars pallid as the day, + In masses spectral, undefined, +Pale greenish stems half hid in dry gray leaves. + +And on beside the river's sober edge + A long fresh field lies black. Beyond, + Low thickets gray and reddish stand, + Stroked white with birch; and near at hand, + Over a little steel-smooth pond, +Hang multitudes of thin and withering sedge. + +Across a waste and solitary rise + A ploughman urges his dull team, + A stooped gray figure with prone brow + That plunges bending to the plough + With strong, uneven steps. The stream +Rings and re-echoes with his furious cries. + +Sometimes the lowing of a cow, long-drawn, + Comes from far off; and crows in strings + Pass on the upper silences. + A flock of small gray goldfinches, + Flown down with silvery twitterings, +Rustle among the birch-cones and are gone. + +This day the season seems like one that heeds, + With fixed ear and lifted hand, + All moods that yet are known on earth, + All motions that have faintest birth, + If haply she may understand +The utmost inward sense of all her deeds. + + + + +IN NOVEMBER + + +With loitering step and quiet eye, +Beneath the low November sky, +I wandered in the woods, and found +A clearing, where the broken ground +Was scattered with black stumps and briers, +And the old wreck of forest fires. +It was a bleak and sandy spot, +And, all about, the vacant plot +Was peopled and inhabited +By scores of mulleins long since dead. +A silent and forsaken brood +In that mute opening of the wood, +So shrivelled and so thin they were, +So gray, so haggard, and austere, +Not plants at all they seemed to me, +But rather some spare company +Of hermit folk, who long ago, +Wandering in bodies to and fro, +Had chanced upon this lonely way, +And rested thus, till death one day +Surprised them at their compline prayer, +And left them standing lifeless there. + +There was no sound about the wood +Save the wind's secret stir. I stood +Among the mullein-stalks as still +As if myself had grown to be +One of their sombre company, +A body without wish or will. +And as I stood, quite suddenly, +Down from a furrow in the sky +The sun shone out a little space +Across that silent sober place, +Over the sand heaps and brown sod, +The mulleins and dead goldenrod, +And passed beyond the thickets gray, +And lit the fallen leaves that lay, +Level and deep within the wood, +A rustling yellow multitude. + +And all around me the thin light, +So sere, so melancholy bright, +Fell like the half-reflected gleam +Or shadow of some former dream; +A moment's golden revery +Poured out on every plant and tree +A semblance of weird joy, or less, +A sort of spectral happiness; +And I, too, standing idly there, +With muffled hands in the chill air, +Felt the warm glow about my feet, +And shuddering betwixt cold and heat, +Drew my thoughts closer, like a cloak, +While something in my blood awoke, +A nameless and unnatural cheer, +A pleasure secret and austere. + + + + +BY AN AUTUMN STREAM + + +Now overhead, +Where the rivulet loiters and stops, +The bittersweet hangs from the tops +Of the alders and cherries +Its bunches of beautiful berries, +Orange and red. + +And the snowbirds flee, +Tossing up on the far brown field, +Now flashing and now concealed, +Like fringes of spray +That vanish and gleam on the gray +Field of the sea. + +Flickering light, +Come the last of the leaves down borne, +And patches of pale white corn +In the wind complain, +Like the slow rustle of rain +Noticed by night. + +Withered and thinned, +The sentinel mullein looms, +With the pale gray shadowy plumes +Of the goldenrod; +And the milkweed opens its pod, +Tempting the wind. + +Aloft on the hill, +A cloudrift opens and shines +Through a break in its gorget of pines, +And it dreams at my feet +In a sad, silvery sheet, +Utterly still. + +All things that be +Seem plunged into silence, distraught, +By some stern, some necessitous thought: +It wraps and enthralls +Marsh, meadow, and forest; and falls +Also on me. + + + + +SNOWBIRDS + + +Along the narrow sandy height + I watch them swiftly come and go, + Or round the leafless wood, + Like flurries of wind-driven snow, +Revolving in perpetual flight, + A changing multitude. + +Nearer and nearer still they sway, + And, scattering in a circled sweep, + Rush down without a sound; + And now I see them peer and peep, +Across yon level bleak and gray, + Searching the frozen ground,-- + +Until a little wind upheaves, + And makes a sudden rustling there, + And then they drop their play, + Flash up into the sunless air, +And like a flight of silver leaves + Swirl round and sweep away. + + + + +SNOW + + +White are the far-off plains, and white + The fading forests grow; +The wind dies out along the height, + And denser still the snow, +A gathering weight on roof and tree, + Falls down scarce audibly. + +The road before me smooths and fills + Apace, and all about +The fences dwindle, and the hills + Are blotted slowly out; +The naked trees loom spectrally + Into the dim white sky. + +The meadows and far-sheeted streams + Lie still without a sound; +Like some soft minister of dreams + The snow-fall hoods me round; +In wood and water, earth and air, + A silence everywhere. + +Save when at lonely intervals + Some farmer's sleigh, urged on, +With rustling runners and sharp bells, + Swings by me and is gone; +Or from the empty waste I hear + A sound remote and clear; + +The barking of a dog, or call + To cattle, sharply pealed, +Borne echoing from some wayside stall + Or barnyard far a-field; +Then all is silent, and the snow + Falls, settling soft and slow. + +The evening deepens, and the gray + Folds closer earth and sky; +The world seems shrouded far away; + Its noises sleep, and I, +As secret as yon buried stream, + Plod dumbly on, and dream. + + + + +SUNSET + + +From this windy bridge at rest, +In some former curious hour, +We have watched the city's hue, +All along the orange west, +Cupola and pointed tower, +Darken into solid blue. + +Tho' the biting north wind breaks +Full across this drifted hold, +Let us stand with iced cheeks +Watching westward as of old; + +Past the violet mountain-head +To the farthest fringe of pine, +Where far off the purple-red +Narrows to a dusky line, +And the last pale splendours die +Slowly from the olive sky; + +Till the thin clouds wear away +Into threads of purple-gray, +And the sudden stars between +Brighten in the pallid green; + +Till above the spacious east, +Slow returned one by one, +Like pale prisoners released +From the dungeons of the sun, +Capella and her train appear +In the glittering Charioteer; + +Till the rounded moon shall grow +Great above the eastern snow, +Shining into burnished gold; +And the silver earth outrolled, +In the misty yellow light, +Shall take on the width of night. + + + + +WINTER-STORE + + +Subtly conscious, all awake, +Let us clear our eyes, and break +Through the cloudy chrysalis, +See the wonder as it is. +Down a narrow alley, blind, +Touch and vision, heart and mind, +Turned sharply inward, still we plod, +Till the calmly smiling god +Leaves us, and our spirits grow +More thin, more acrid, as we go. +Creeping by the sullen wall, +We forego the power to see, +The threads that bind us to the All, +God or the Immensity; +Whereof on the eternal road +Man is but a passing mode. + +Too blind we are, too little see +Of the magic pageantry, +Every minute, every hour, +From the cloudflake to the flower, +Forever old, forever strange, +Issuing in perpetual change +From the rainbow gates of Time. + +But he who through this common air +Surely knows the great and fair, +What is lovely, what sublime, +Becomes in an increasing span, +One with earth and one with man, +One, despite these mortal scars, +With the planets and the stars; +And Nature from her holy place, +Bending with unveiled face, +Fills him in her divine employ +With her own majestic joy. + +Up the fielded slopes at morn, +Where light wefts of shadow pass, +Films upon the bending corn, +I shall sweep the purple grass. +Sun-crowned heights and mossy woods, +And the outer solitudes, +Mountain-valleys, dim with pine, +Shall be home and haunt of mine. +I shall search in crannied hollows, +Where the sunlight scarcely follows, +And the secret forest brook +Murmurs, and from nook to nook +Forever downward curls and cools, +Frothing in the bouldered pools. + +Many a noon shall find me laid +In the pungent balsam shade, +Where sharp breezes spring and shiver +On some deep rough-coasted river, +And the plangent waters come, +Amber-hued and streaked with foam; +Where beneath the sunburnt hills +All day long the crowded mills +With remorseless champ and scream +Overlord the sluicing stream, + And the rapids' iron roar +Hammers at the forest's core; +Where corded rafts creep slowly on, +Glittering in the noonday sun, +And the tawny river-dogs, +Shepherding the branded logs, +Bind and heave with cadenced cry; +Where the blackened tugs go by, +Panting hard and straining slow, +Laboring at the weighty tow, +Flat-nosed barges all in trim, +Creeping in long cumbrous line, +Loaded to the water's brim +With the clean, cool-scented pine. + +Perhaps in some low meadow-land, +Stretching wide on either hand, +I shall see the belted bees +Rocking with the tricksy breeze +In the spired meadow-sweet, +Or with eager trampling feet +Burrowing in the boneset blooms, +Treading out the dry perfumes. +Where sun-hot hay-fields newly mown +Climb the hillside ruddy brown, +I shall see the haymakers, +While the noonday scarcely stirs, +Brown of neck and booted gray, +Tossing up the rustling hay, +While the hay-racks bend and rock, +As they take each scented cock, +Jolting over dip and rise; +And the wavering butterflies +O'er the spaces brown and bare +Light and wander here and there. + +I shall stray by many a stream, +Where the half-shut lilies gleam, +Napping out the sultry days +In the quiet secluded bays; +Where the tasseled rushes tower, +O'er the purple pickerel-flower, +And the floating dragon-fly-- +Azure glint and crystal gleam-- +Watches o'er the burnished stream +With his eye of ebony; +Where the bull-frog lolls at rest +On his float of lily-leaves, +That the swaying water weaves, +And distends his yellow breast, +Lowing out from shore to shore +With a hollow vibrant roar; +Where the softest wind that blows, +As it lightly comes and goes, +O'er the jungled river meads, +Stirs a whisper in the reeds, +And wakes the crowded bull-rushes +From their stately reveries, +Flashing through their long-leaved hordes +Like a brandishing of swords; +There, too, the frost-like arrow-flowers +Tremble to the golden core, +Children of enchanted hours, +Whom the rustling river bore +In the night's bewildered noon, +Woven of water and the moon. + +I shall hear the grasshoppers +From the parched grass rehearse, +And with drowsy note prolong +Evermore the same thin song. +I shall hear the crickets tell +Stories by the humming well, +And mark the locust, with quaint eyes, +Caper in his cloak of gray +Like a jester in disguise +Rattling by the dusty way. + +I shall dream by upland fences, +Where the season's wealth condenses +Over many a weedy wreck, +Wild, uncared-for, desert places, +That sovereign Beauty loves to deck +With her softest, dearest graces. +There the long year dreams in quiet, +And the summer's strength runs riot. +Shall I not remember these, +Deep in winter reveries? +Berried brier and thistle-bloom, +And milkweed with its dense perfume; +Slender vervain towering up +In a many-branched cup, +Like a candlestick, each spire +Kindled with a violet fire; +Matted creepers and wild cherries, +Purple-bunched elderberries, +And on scanty plots of sod +Groves of branchy goldenrod. + +What though autumn mornings now, +Winterward with glittering brow, +Stiffen in the silver grass; +And what though robins flock and pass, +With subdued and sober call, +To the old year's funeral; +Though October's crimson leaves +Rustle at the gusty door, +And the tempest round the eaves +Alternate with pipe and roar; +I sit, as erst, unharmed, secure, +Conscious that my store is sure, +Whatsoe'er the fenced fields, +Or the untilled forest yields +Of unhurt remembrances, +Or thoughts, far-glimpsed, half-followed, these +I have reaped and laid away, +A treasure of unwinnowed grain, +To the garner packed and gray +Gathered without toil or strain. + +And when the darker days shall come, +And the fields are white and dumb; +When our fires are half in vain, +And the crystal starlight weaves +Mockeries of summer leaves, +Pictured on the icy pane; +When the high aurora gleams +Far above the Arctic streams +Like a line of shifting spears, +And the broad pine-circled meres, +Glimmering in that spectral light, +Thunder through the northern night; +Then within the bolted door +I shall con my summer store; +Though the fences scarcely show +Black above the drifted snow, +Though the icy sweeping wind +Whistle in the empty tree, +Safe within the sheltered mind, +I shall feed on memory. + +Yet across the windy night +Comes upon its wings a cry; +Fashioned forms and modes take flight, +And a vision sad and high +Of the laboring world down there, +Where the lights burn red and warm, +Pricks my soul with sudden stare, +Glowing through the veils of storm. +In the city yonder sleep +Those who smile and those who weep, +Those whose lips are set with care, +Those whose brows are smooth and fair; +Mourners whom the dawning light +Shall grapple with an old distress; +Lovers folded at midnight +In their bridal happiness; +Pale watchers by beloved beds, +Fallen a-drowse with nodding heads, +Whom sleep captured by surprise, +With the circles round their eyes; +Maidens with quiet-taken breath, +Dreaming of enchanted bowers; +Old men with the mask of death; +Little children soft as flowers; +Those who wake wild-eyed and start +In some madness of the heart; +Those whose lips and brows of stone +Evil thoughts have graven upon, +Shade by shade and line by line, +Refashioning what was once divine. + +All these sleep, and through the night, +Comes a passion and a cry, +With a blind sorrow and a might, +I know not whence, I know not why, +A something I cannot control, +A nameless hunger of the soul. +It holds me fast. In vain, in vain, +I remember how of old +I saw the ruddy race of men, +Through the glittering world outrolled, +A gay-smiling multitude, +All immortal, all divine, +Treading in a wreathed line +By a pathway through a wood. + + + + +THE SUN CUP + + +The earth is the cup of the sun, +That he filleth at morning with wine, +With the warm, strong wine of his might +From the vintage of gold and of light, +Fills it, and makes it divine. + +And at night when his journey is done, +At the gate of his radiant hall, +He setteth his lips to the brim, +With a long last look of his eye, +And lifts it and draineth it dry, +Drains till he leaveth it all +Empty and hollow and dim. + +And then, as he passes to sleep, +Still full of the feats that he did, +Long ago in Olympian wars, +He closes it down with the sweep +Of its slow-turning luminous lid, +Its cover of darkness and stars, +Wrought once by Hephaestus of old +With violet and vastness and gold. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lyrics of Earth, by Archibald Lampman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYRICS OF EARTH *** + +***** This file should be named 12664.txt or 12664.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/2/6/6/12664/ + +Produced by Andrew Sly. + +Thank you to Canadian Poetry [http://www.canadianpoetry.ca] for +providing the source text. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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