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diff --git a/old/53445-0.txt b/old/53445-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ca1a665..0000000 --- a/old/53445-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2713 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Labor and the Angel, by Duncan Campbell Scott - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Labor and the Angel - - -Author: Duncan Campbell Scott - - - -Release Date: November 3, 2016 [eBook #53445] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LABOR AND THE ANGEL*** - - -E-text prepared by Larry B. Harrison and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made -available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/laborangel00scot - - -Transcriber’s note: - - Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - - Small capitals were converted to ALL CAPITALS. - - - - - -LABOR AND THE ANGEL - -DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT - - - - - - - -[Illustration: colophon] - -Boston -Copeland and Day -M DCCC XCVIII - -Copyright, 1898, by Copeland and Day - - - - - TO MY WIFE - - - _In every heart the heart of spring - Bursts into leaf and bud; - The heart of love in every heart - Leaps with its eager flood._ - - _Then hasten, rosy life, and lead - The Pilgrim to the door, - His sandals thonged for ministering, - His forehead bright with lore._ - - _Oh, happy lovers, learn to serve, - And crown your state with power, - For Service is the peasant root, - And Love the princely flower._ - - - - - CONTENTS. - - - LABOR AND THE ANGEL 1 - THE HARVEST 5 - WHEN SPRING GOES BY 11 - MARCH 12 - IN MAY 12 - ON THE MOUNTAIN 13 - THE ONONDAGA MADONNA 15 - WATKWENIES 15 - AVIS 16 - THE VIOLET PRESSED IN A COPY OF SHAKESPEARE 19 - ANGELUS 21 - ADAGIO 21 - DIRGE FOR A VIOLET 23 - EQUATION 24 - AFTERWARDS 24 - STONE BREAKING 25 - THE LESSON 26 - FROM SHADOW 27 - THE PIPER OF ARLL 29 - AT LES ÉBOULEMENTS 35 - THE WOLF 35 - RAIN AND THE ROBIN 37 - THE DAME REGNANT 37 - THE CUP 45 - THE HAPPY FATALIST 45 - A GROUP OF SONGS - I. WHEN THE ASH-TREE BUDS AND THE MAPLES 46 - II. THE WORLD IS SPINNING FOR CHANGE 47 - III. THE WIND IS WILD TO-NIGHT 48 - IV. IN THE RUDDY HEART OF THE SUNSET 49 - V. SORROW IS COME LIKE A SWALLOW TO NEST 50 - VI. ’TIS AUTUMN AND DOWN IN THE FIELDS 51 - VII. SPRING SONG 52 - VIII. SUMMER SONG 53 - IX. AUTUMN SONG 54 - X. WINTER SONG 55 - XI. THE CANADIAN’S HOME-SONG 56 - XII. MADRIGAL 57 - XIII. WORDS AFTER MUSIC 58 - - - - - LABOR AND THE ANGEL. - - - The wind plunges—then stops; - And a column of leaves in a whirl, - Like a dervish that spins—drops, - With a delicate rustle, - Falls into a circle that thins; - The leaves creep away one by one, - Hiding in hollows and ruts; - Silence comes down on the lane: - The light wheels slow from the sun, - And glints where the corn stood, - And strays over the plain, - Touching with patches of gold, - The knolls and the hollows, - Crosses the lane, - And slips into the wood; - Then flashes a mile away on the farm, - A moment of brightness fine; - Then the gold glimmers and wanes, - And is swept by a clouding of gray, - For cheek by jowl, arm in arm, - The shadow’s afoot with the shine. - The wind roars out from the elm, - Then leaps tiger-sudden;—the leaves - Shudder up into heaps and are caught - High as the branch where they hung - Over the oriole’s nest. - - Down in the sodden field, - A blind man is gathering his roots, - Guided and led by a girl; - Her gold hair blows in the wind, - Her garments with flutter and furl - Leap like a flag in the sun; - And whenever he stoops, she stoops, - And they heap the dark colored beets - In the barrow, row upon row. - When it is full to the brim, - He wheels it patiently, slow, - Something oppressive and grim - Clothing his figure, but she - Beautifully light at his side, - Touches his arm with her hand, - Ready to help or to guide: - Power and comfort at need - In the flex of her figure lurk, - The fire at the heart of the deed - The angel that watches o’er work. - - This is her visible form, - Heartening the labor she loves, - Keeping the breath of it warm, - Warm as a nestling of doves. - Humble or high or sublime, - Hers no reward of degrees, - Ditching as precious as rhyme, - If only the spirit be true. - “Effort and effort,” she cries, - “This is the heart-beat of life, - Up with the lark and the dew, - Still with the dew and the stars, - Feel it athrob in the earth.” - When labor is counselled by love, - You may see her splendid, serene, - Bending and brooding above, - With the justice and power of her mien - Where thought has its passionate birth, - Her smile is the sweetest renown, - For the stroke and the derring-do, - Her crown is the starriest crown. - When tears at the fountain are dry, - Bares she the round of her breast, - Soft to the cicatrized cheek, - Lulls this avatar of rest; - Strength is her arm for the weak; - Courage the wells of her eyes; - What is the power of their deeps, - Only the baffled can guess; - Nothing can daunt the emprise - When she sets hand to the hilt; - Victory is she—not less. - And oh! in the cages and dens - Where women work down to the bone, - Where men never laugh but they curse, - Think you she leaves them alone? - She the twin-sister of Love! - There, where the pressure is worst, - Of this hell-palace built to the skies - Upon hearts too crushed down to burst, - There, she is wiser than wise, - Giving no vistas sublime - Of towers in the murmurous air, - With gardens of pleasaunce and pride - Lulling the fleetness of time, - With doves alight by the side - Of a fountain that veils and drips; - She offers no tantalus-cup - To the shrunken, the desperate lips; - But she calms them with lethe and love, - And deadens the throb and the pain, - And evens the heart-beat wild, - Whispering again and again, - “Work on, work on, work on, - My broken, my agonized child,” - With her tremulous, dew-cool lips, - At the whorl of the tortured ear, - Till the cry is the presage of hope, - The trample of succor near. - - And for those whose desperate day - Breeds night with a leaguer of fears, - (Night, that on earth brings the dew, - With stars at the window, and wind - In the maples, and rushes of balm,) - She pours from their limitless stores - Her sacred, ineffable tears. - When a soul too weary of life - Sets to its madness an end, - Then for a moment her eyes - Lighten, and thunder broods dark, - Heavy and strong at her heart; - But for a moment, and then - All her imperious wrath - Breaks in a passion of tears, - With the surge of her grief outpoured, - She sinks on the bosom of Love, - Her sister of infinite years, - And is wrapped, and enclosed, and restored. - - So we have come with the breeze, - Up to the height of the hill, - Lost in the valley trees, - The old blind man and the girl; - But deep in the heart is the thrill - Of the image of counselling love; - The shape of the soul in the gloom, - And the power of the figure above, - Stand for the whole world’s need: - For labor is always blind, - Unless as the light of the deed - The angel is smiling behind. - - Now on the height of the hill, - The wind is fallen to a breath; - But down in the valley still, - It stalks in the shadowy wood, - And angers the river’s breast; - The fields turn into the dark - That plays on the round of the sphere; - A star leaps sharp in the clear - Line of the sky, clear and cold; - But a cloud in the warmer west - Holds for a little its gold; - Like the wing of a seraph who sinks - Into antres afar from the earth, - Reluctant he flames on the brinks - Of the circles of nebulous stars, - Reluctant he turns to the rest, - From the planet whose ideal is love, - And then as he sweeps to the void - Vivid with tremulous light, - He gives it his translucent wing, - An emblem of pity unfurled, - Then falls to the uttermost ring, - And is lost to the world. - - - - - THE HARVEST. - - - Sun on the mountain, - Shade in the valley, - Ripple and lightness - Leaping along the world, - Sun, like a gold sword - Plucked from the scabbard, - Striking the wheat-fields, - Splendid and lusty, - Close-standing, full-headed, - Toppling with plenty; - Shade, like a buckler - Kindly and ample, - Sweeping the wheat-fields - Darkening and tossing; - There on the world-rim - Winds break and gather - Heaping the mist - For the pyre of the sunset; - And still as a shadow, - In the dim westward, - A cloud sloop of amethyst - Moored to the world - With cables of rain. - - Acres of gold wheat - Stir in the sunshine, - Rounding the hill-top, - Crested with plenty, - Filling the valley, - Brimmed with abundance; - Wind in the wheat-field - Eddying and settling, - Swaying it, sweeping it, - Lifting the rich heads, - Tossing them soothingly; - Twinkle and shimmer - The lights and the shadowings, - Nimble as moonlight - Astir in the mere. - Laden with odors - Of peace and of plenty, - Soft comes the wind - From the ranks of the wheat-field, - Bearing a promise - Of harvest and sickle-time, - Opulent threshing-floors - Dusty and dim - With the whirl of the flail, - And wagons of bread, - Down-laden and lumbering - Through the gateways of cities. - - When will the reapers - Strike in their sickles, - Bending and grasping, - Shearing and spreading; - When will the gleaners - Searching the stubble - Take the last wheat-heads - Home in their arms? - - Ask not the question!— - Something tremendous - Moves to the answer. - - Hunger and poverty - Heaped like the ocean - Welters and mutters, - _Hold back the sickles!_ - - Millions of children - Born to their terrible - Ancestral hunger, - Starved in their mothers’ womb, - Starved at the nipple, cry,— - _Ours is the harvest!_ - - Millions of women - Learned in the tragical - Secrets of poverty, - Sweated and beaten, cry,— - _Hold back the sickles!_ - - Millions of men - With a vestige of manhood, - Wild-eyed and gaunt-throated, - Shout with a leonine - Accent of anger, - _Leave us the wheat-fields!_ - - When will the reapers - Strike in their sickles? - Ask not the question; - Something tremendous - Moves to the answer. - - Long have they sharpened - Their fiery, impetuous - Sickles of carnage, - Welded them æons - Ago in the mountains - Of suffering and anguish; - Hearts were their hammers - Blood was their fire, - Sorrow their anvil, - (Trusty the sickles - Tempered with tears;) - Time they had plenty— - Harvests and harvests - Passed them in agony, - Only a half-filled - Ear for their lot; - Man that had taken - God for a master - Made him a law, - Mocked him and cursed him, - Set up this hunger, - Called it necessity, - Put in the blameless mouth - Judas’s language: - The poor ye have with you - Alway, unending. - - But up from the impotent - Anguish of children, - Up from the labor - Fruitless, unmeaning, - Of millions of mothers, - Hugely necessitous, - Grew by a just law - Stern and implacable, - Art born of poverty, - The making of sickles - Meet for the harvest. - - And now to the wheat-fields - Come the weird reapers - Armed with their sickles, - Whipping them keenly - In the fresh-air fields, - Wild with the joy of them, - Finding them trusty, - Hilted with teen. - Swarming like ants, - The Idea for captain, - No banners, no bugles, - Only a terrible - Ground-bass of gathering - Tempest and fury, - Only a tossing - Of arms and of garments; - Sexless and featureless, - (Only the children - Different among them, - Crawling between their feet, - Borne on their shoulders;) - Rolling their shaggy heads - Wild with the unheard-of - Drug of the sunshine; - Tears that had eaten - The half of their eyelids - Dry on their cheeks; - Blood in their stiffened hair - Clouted and darkened; - Down in their cavern hearts - Hunger the tiger, - Leaping, exulting; - Sighs that had choked them - Burst into triumphing; - On they come, Victory! - Up to the wheat-fields, - Dreamed of in visions - Bred by the hunger, - Seen for the first time - Splendid and golden; - On they come fluctuant, - Seething and breaking, - Weltering like fire - In the pit of the earthquake, - Bursting in heaps - With the sudden intractable - Lust of the hunger: - Then when they see them— - The miles of the harvest - White in the sunshine, - Rushing and stumbling, - With the mighty and clamorous - Cry of a people - Starved from creation, - Hurl themselves onward, - Deep in the wheat-fields, - Weeping like children, - After ages and ages, - Back at the breasts - Of their mother the earth. - - Night in the valley, - Gloom on the mountain, - Wind in the wheat, - Far to the southward - The flutter of lightning, - The shudder of thunder; - But high at the zenith, - A cluster of stars - Glimmers and throbs - In the grasp of the midnight, - Steady and absolute, - Ancient and sure. - - - - - WHEN SPRING GOES BY. - - - The winds that on the uplands softly lie, - Grow keener where the ice is lingering still, - Where the first robin on the sheltered hill - Pipes blithely to the tune, “When Spring goes by!” - Hear him again, “Spring! Spring!” he seems to cry, - Haunting the fall of the flute-throated rill, - That keeps a gentle, constant, silver thrill, - While he is restless in his ecstasy. - - Ah! the soft budding of the virginal woods, - Of the frail fruit trees by the vanishing lakes: - There’s the new moon where the clear sunset floods, - A trace of dew upon the rose leaf sky; - And hark! what rapture the glad robin wakes— - “When Spring goes by; Spring! Spring! When Spring goes by.” - - - - - MARCH. - - - Now swoops the wind from every coign and crest; - Like filaments of silver, ripped and spun, - The snow reels off the drift-ridge in the sun; - And smoky clouds are torn across the west, - Clouds that would snow if they had time to rest; - The sparrows brangle and the icicles clash; - The grosbeaks search for berries in the ash; - The shore-lark tinkles while he plans his nest. - - Now in the steaming woods the maples drip, - And plunging in with the last load of sap, - Beyond the branches through a starry gap, - The driver sees the frail aurora flow, - And round the sinking Pleiads bend and blow; - A rosy banner and a silver ship. - - - - - IN MAY. - - - The clouds that veil the early day - Are very near and soft and fine, - The heaven peeps between the gray, - A luminous and pearly line. - - The breeze is up, now soft, now full, - And moulds the vapor light as fleece, - It trembles, then, with drip and lull, - The rain drifts gently through the trees. - - It trails into a silver blur, - And hangs about the cherry tops - That sprinkle, with the wind astir, - In little sudden whirls of drops. - - The apple orchards, banked with bloom, - Are drenched and dripping with the wet, - And on the breeze their deep perfume - Grows and fades by and lingers yet. - - In some green covert far remote - The oven-bird is never still, - And, golden-throat to golden-throat, - The orioles warble on the hill. - - Now over all the gem-like woods - The delicate mist is blown again, - And after dripping interludes - Lets down the lulling silver rain. - - - - - ON THE MOUNTAIN. - - - I. - - A storm from the mountain is coming, - With lightning and thunder and rain, - The wind is sweeping and humming - In the butternut trees on the plain. - - The cloud is ebon that follows, - The fore-cloud is livid and pale, - There’s the flash and the tossing of swallows - In the turn of the eddying gale. - - The rain is awake on the mountain, - ’T is lashing the forest afar - With fall of a shattering fountain - And the tramp and tumult of war, - - With the drums of the detoning thunder, - And the clang in the bugles of wind, - With the gonfalons tortured asunder - By the rush of the host from behind. - - The plains are leaping with shadows, - The highlands go out like a blot, - And over the eddying meadows - The rain is hurtled like shot. - - The darkness is glooming and brightening, - There is alternate chaos and form, - With the parry and thrust of the lightning - In the turbulent heart of the storm. - - - II. - - Now the storm is over, - And the greener plain - Seems to glow and hover - Through the thinning rain. - - Now the wind is gusty - In the maple tops, - Striking out the lusty - Storms of gleaming drops. - - Now the goldfinch whistles - In his spattered vest, - Balanced on the thistles, - Bolder than the best. - - And the hermit thrushes - On the sparkling hills, - Link the dripping hushes - With their silver thrills. - - - - - THE ONONDAGA MADONNA. - - - She stands full-throated and with careless pose, - This woman of a weird and waning race, - The tragic savage lurking in her face, - Where all her pagan passion burns and glows; - Her blood is mingled with her ancient foes, - And thrills with war and wildness in her veins; - Her rebel lips are dabbled with the stains - Of feuds and forays and her father’s woes. - - And closer in the shawl about her breast, - The latest promise of her nation’s doom, - Paler than she her baby clings and lies, - The primal warrior gleaming from his eyes; - He sulks, and burdened with his infant gloom, - He draws his heavy brows and will not rest. - - - - - WATKWENIES.[1] - - - Vengeance was once her nation’s lore and law: - When the tired sentry stooped above the rill, - Her long knife flashed, and hissed, and drank its fill; - Dimly below her dripping wrist she saw, - One wild hand, pale as death and weak as straw, - Clutch at the ripple in the pool; while shrill - Sprang through the dreaming hamlet on the hill, - The war-cry of the triumphant Iroquois. - - - Now clothed with many an ancient flap and fold, - And wrinkled like an apple kept till May, - She weighs the interest-money in her palm, - And, when the Agent calls her valiant name, - Hears, like the war-whoops of her perished day, - The lads playing snow-snake in the stinging cold. - -Footnote 1: - - The Woman who Conquers. - - - - - AVIS. - - - With a golden rolling sound - Booming came a bell, - From the aery in the tower - Eagles fell; - So with regal wings - Hurled, and gleaming sound and power, - Sprang the fatal spell. - - Then a storm of burnished doves - Gleaming from the cote - Flurried by the almonry - O’er the moat,— - Fell and soared and fell - With the arc and iris eye - Burning breast and throat. - - Avis heard the beaten bell - Break the quiet space, - Gathering softly in the room - Round her face; - And the sound of wings - From the deeps of rosy gloom - Rustled in the place. - - Nothing moved along the wall, - Weltered on the floor; - Only in the purple deep, - Streaming o’er, - Came the dream of sound - Silent as the dale of sleep, - Where the dreams are four. - - (One of love without a word, - Wan to look upon, - One of fear without a cry, - Cowering stone, - And the dower of life,— - Grief without a single sigh, - Pain without a moan.) - - “Avis—Avis!” cried a voice; - Then the voice was mute. - “Avis!” soft the echo lay - As the lute. - Where she was she fell, - Drowsy as mandragora, - Trancèd to the root. - - Then she heard her mother’s voice, - Tender as a dove; - Then her lover plain and sigh, - “Avis—Love!” - Like the mavis bird - Calling, calling lonelily - From the eerie grove. - - Then she heard within the vast - Closure of the spell, - Rolled and moulded into one - Rounded swell, - All the sounds that ever were - Uttered underneath the sun, - Heard in heaven or hell. - - In the arras moved the wind, - And the window cloth - Rippled like a serpent barred, - Gray with wrath; - In the brazier gold - The wan ghost of a rose charred - Fluttered like a moth. - - Tranquil lay her darkened eyes - As the pools that keep - Auras dim of fern and frond - Dappled, deep, - Dreamy as the map of Nod; - Moveless was she as a wand - In the wind of sleep. - - Then the birds began to cry - From the crannied wall, - Piping as the morning rose - Mystical, - Gray with whistling rain, - Silver with the light that flows - In the interval. - - Pallid poplars cast a shade, - Twinkling gray and dun, - Where the wind and water wove - Into one - All the linnet leaves, - Greening from the mere and grove - In the undern sun. - - Night fell with the ferny dusk, - Planets paled and grew, - Up, with lilt and clarid turns - Throbbing through, - Rose the robin’s song, - Heart of home and love that burns - Beating in the dew. - - But she neither moved nor heard, - Trancèd was her breath; - Lip on charmèd lip was laid - (One who saith - “Love—Undone” and falls). - Silent was she as a shade - In the dells of death. - - - - - THE VIOLET PRESSED IN A COPY OF SHAKESPEARE. - - - Here in the inmost of the master’s heart - This violet crisp with early dew, - Has come to leave her beauty and to part - With all her vivid hue. - - And while in hollow glades and dells of musk, - Her fellows will reflower in bands, - Clasping the deeps of shade and emerald dusk, - With sweet inviolate hands, - - She will lie here, a ghost of their delight, - Their lucent stems all ashen gray, - Their purples fallen into pulvil white, - Dull as the bluebird’s alula. - - But here where human passions pulse in power, - She will transcend our Shakespeare’s art, - From Desdemona to a smothered flower, - Will leap the tragic heart. - - And memory will recall in keener mood - The precinct fair where passion grew, - The stars within the water in the wood, - The moonlit grove, the odorous dew. - - The voice that throbbed along the summer dark - Will float and pause and thrill, - In lonely cadence silvern as the lark, - To fail below the hill. - - The reader will grow weary of the play, - Finding his heart half understood, - And with the young moon in the early dusk will stray - Beside the starry water in the wood. - - - - - ANGELUS. - - - A deep bell that links the downs - To the drowsy air; - Every loop of sound that swoons, - Finds a circle fair, - Whereon it doth rest and fade; - Every stroke that dins is laid - Like a node, - Spinning out the quivering, fine, - Vibrant tendrils of a vine: - (Bim—bim—bim.) - How they wreathe and run, - Silvern as a filmy light, - Filtered from the sun: - The god of sound is out of sight, - And the bell is like a cloud, - Humming to the outer rim, - Low and loud: - (Bim—bim—bim.) - Throwing down the tempered lull, - Fragile, beautiful: - Married drones and overtones, - How we fancy them to swim, - Spreading into shapes that shine, - With the aura of the metals, - Prisoned in the bell, - Fulvous tinted as a shell, - Dreamy, dim, - Deep in amber hyaline: - (Bim—bim—bim.) - - - - - ADAGIO. - - - Grave maid, surrounded by the austere air - Of this delaying spring, what gentle grief, - What hovering, mystical melancholy - Hath covered thee with the translucent shadow? - The glaucous silver buds upon the tree, - And the light burst of blossom in the bush - Are the new year’s evangel: soon the birch - Will breathe in heaven with her myriad leaves, - And hide the birds’ nests from the tuliped lawn; - But thou, with look askance and dreaming eyes, - Brooding on something subtly sad and sweet, - Art passive, and the world may have her way, - Hide the moraine of immemorial days - With bines and blossoms, so thine unvaried hour - Be not perplexèd with the change of growth. - Within this sombre circle of the hills, - Thy girlish eyes have seen the winter’s close, - And what may lie beyond, where the sun falls, - When the vale fills with rose, and the first star - Looks liquidly, thy quiet heart knows not. - The permanence of beauty haunts thy dreams, - And only as a land beyond desire, - Where the fixed glow may stain the vivid flower, - Where youth may lose his wings but keep his joy, - Does that far slope in the reluctant light - Lure thee beyond the barrier of the hills. - And often in the morning of the heart, - When memories are like crocus-buds in spring, - Thou hast up-builded in thy crystal soul - Immutable forms of things loved once and lost, - Or loved and never gained. - Now while the wind - From the reflowering bush gushes with perfume, - Thou hast a vision of a precinct fair, - Daled in the lustrous hills, where the mossed dial - Holds the slow shadow narrowed to a line; - Where a parterre of tulips hoards the light, - Changeless and pure in cups of tranquil gold; - Where bee-hives gray against the poplar shade, - Peopled with bees, hum in perpetual drone; - In a pavilion centred in the close, - Four viols build the perfect cube of sound; - A path beside the rosy barberry hedge, - Leads to the cool of water under spray, - Leads to the fountain-echoing ivied wall; - Pedestaled there, flecked with the linden shadows, - A guardian statue carved in purest stone, - Love and Mnemosyne; Mnemosyne - Mothering the Truant to an all-cherishing breast, - The wells of lore deepening her eyes, would speak— - But Love hath laid his hand upon her lips. - - - - - DIRGE FOR A VIOLET. - - - Here was a happy flower, - Born in sun and shower, - In the meadow; - Sorrow was her dower, - And shadow. - - Bid the gentle mole - Dig his deepest hole, - For her rest; - Sleep has charmed her soul, - Sleep is best. - - Bid the vervain spire - Light the funeral fire, - And the yarrow - Build a shady choir, - For the sparrow. - - Bid him chirp and cry, - “Everything must die, - She is dead,” - Now in exequy, - All is said. - - - - - EQUATION. - - - When we grow old, and time looks like a thief, - That was the spendthrift of our dearest days; - When color mingles merged in silvered grays; - When joys are ever memoried to be brief; - When beauty fades; when hope is under feof; - When all our moods are mantled in a haze; - When sprightly pleasure for a penance plays - The part of prudence in the weeds of grief; - It will suffice if unto memory - Visit the voices and the eager grace - Of days that promised never to forget; - If they will flow like rumors of the sea, - Heard under honied lindens in the place, - Where start the marguerite and the mignonette. - - - - - AFTERWARDS. - - - Her life was touched with early frost, - About the April of her day, - Her hold on earth was lightly lost, - And like a leaf she went away. - - Her soul was chartered for great deeds, - For gentle war unwonted here: - Her spirit sought her clearer needs, - An Empyrean atmosphere. - - At hush of eve we hear her still - Say with her clear, her perfect smile, - And with her silver-throated thrill: - “A little while—a little while.” - - - - - STONE BREAKING. - - - March wind rough - Clashed the trees, - Flung the snow; - Breaking stones, - In the cold, - Germans slow - Toiled and toiled; - Arrowy sun - Glanced and sprang, - One right blithe - German sang: - Songs of home, - Fatherland: - Syenite hard, - Weary lot, - Callous hand, - All forgot: - Hammers pound, - Ringing round; - Rise the heaps, - To his voice, - Bounds and leaps - Toise on toise: - Toil is long, - But dear God - Gives us song, - At the end, - Gives us rest, - Toil is best. - - - - - THE LESSON. - - - When the great day is done, - That seems so long, - So full of fret and fun, - Our little girl is in her cradle laid: - She takes the soft dark-petaled flower of sleep - Between her fragile hands, - Striving to pluck it: - And as the dream-roots slowly part, - She is not in possession of the lands, - Where flowered her tender heart, - Nor in this turmoil dire of cark and strife, - Which we call life, - The which, husbanding all our art, - We will keep veiled until the latest day, - And from her wrapt away: - Then when the drowsy flower - Has parted from the dreamful mead, - And in her palm lies plucked indeed, - When her dear breathing steadies after sighs, - And the soft lids have clouded the blue eyes, - A tiny hand falls on my cheek— - Lightly and so fragrantly - As if a snow-flake could a rose-leaf be— - And in the dark touches a tear - Which has sprung clear, - From eyes unconscious of their own distress, - At the deep pathos of such tender helplessness. - And then she claims her sleep, - As if she knows my love and trusts it deep. - - Dear God! to whom the bravest of us is a child, - When I am weary, when I cannot rest, - I have stretched out my hand into the dark, - And felt the shadow stark, - But no face brooding near, - Nor any tear - Compassionately wept: - I have not slept. - - But now I learn my lesson from the sage, - Who burns his lore with acid on the heart; - I will not whimper when I feel the smart, - And for my comfort will look down, not up; - I will give ever from a brimming sky, - Not telling how or why; - I will be answered in this little child, - I will be reconciled. - - - - - FROM SHADOW. - - - Now the November skies, - And the clouds that are thin and gray, - That drop with the wind away; - A flood of sunlight rolls, - In a tide of shallow light, - Gold on the land and white - On the water, dim and warm in the wood; - Then it is gone, and the wan - Clear of the shade - Covers field and barren and glade. - The peace of labor done, - Is wide in the gracious earth; - The harvest is won; - Past are the tears and the mirth; - And we feel in the tenuous air - How far beyond thought or prayer - Is the grace of silent things, - That work for the world alway, - Neither for fear nor for pay, - And when labor is over, rest. - - The moil of our fretted life - Is borne anew to the soul, - Borne with its cark and strife, - Its burden of care and dread, - Its glories elusive and strange; - And the weight of the weary whole - Presses it down, till we cry: - Where is the fruit of our deeds? - Why should we struggle to build - Towers against death on the plain? - All things possess their lives - Save man, whose task and desire - Transcend his power and his will. - - The question is over and still; - Nothing replies: but the earth - Takes on a lovelier hue - From a cloud that neighbored the sun, - That the sun burned down and through, - Till it glowed like a seraph’s wing; - The fields that were gray and dun - Are warm in the flowing light; - Fair in the west the night - Strikes in with a vibrant star. - - Something has stirred afar - In the shadow that winter flings; - A message comes up to the soul - From the soul of inanimate things: - A message that widens and grows - Till it touches the deeds of man, - Till we see in the torturous throes - Some dawning glimmer of plan; - Till we feel in the deepening night - The hand of the angel Content, - That stranger of calmness and light, - With his brow over us bent, - Who moves with his eyes on the earth, - Whose robe of lambent green, - A tissue of herb and its sheen, - Tells the mother who gave him birth. - The message plays through his touch, - It grows with the roots of his power, - Till it flames exultant in thought, - As the quince-tree triumphs in flower. - - The fruit that is checked and marred - Goes under the sod: - The good lives here in the world; - It persists,—it is God. - - - - - THE PIPER OF ARLL. - - - There was in Arll a little cove - Where the salt wind came cool and free: - A foamy beach that one would love, - If he were longing for the sea. - - A brook hung sparkling on the hill, - The hill swept far to ring the bay; - The bay was faithful, wild or still, - To the heart of the ocean far away. - - There were three pines above the comb - That, when the sun flared and went down, - Grew like three warriors reaving home - The plunder of a burning town. - - A piper lived within the grove, - Tending the pasture of his sheep; - His heart was swayed with faithful love, - From the springs of God’s ocean clear and deep. - - And there a ship one evening stood, - Where ship had never stood before; - A pennon bickered red as blood, - An angel glimmered at the prore. - - About the coming on of dew, - The sails burned rosy, and the spars - Were gold, and all the tackle grew - Alive with ruby-hearted stars. - - The piper heard an outland tongue, - With music in the cadenced fall; - And when the fairy lights were hung, - The sailors gathered one and all, - - And leaning on the gunwales dark, - Crusted with shells and dashed with foam, - With all the dreaming hills to hark, - They sang their longing songs of home. - - When the sweet airs had fled away, - The piper, with a gentle breath, - Moulded a tranquil melody - Of lonely love and longed-for death. - - When the fair sound began to lull, - From out the fireflies and the dew, - A silence held the shadowy hull, - Until the eerie tune was through. - - Then from the dark and dreamy deck - An alien song began to thrill; - It mingled with the drumming beck, - And stirred the braird upon the hill. - - Beneath the stars each sent to each - A message tender, till at last - The piper slept upon the beach, - The sailors slumbered round the mast. - - Still as a dream till nearly dawn, - The ship was bosomed on the tide; - The streamlet, murmuring on and on, - Bore the sweet water to her side. - - Then shaking out her lawny sails, - Forth on the misty sea she crept; - She left the dawning of the dales, - Yet in his cloak the piper slept. - - And when he woke he saw the ship, - Limned black against the crimson sun; - Then from the disc he saw her slip, - A wraith of shadow—she was gone. - - He threw his mantle on the beach, - He went apart like one distraught, - His lips were moved—his desperate speech - Stormed his inviolable thought. - - He broke his human-throated reed, - And threw it in the idle rill; - But when his passion had its mead, - He found it in the eddy still. - - He mended well the patient flue, - Again he tried its varied stops; - The closures answered right and true, - And starting out in piercing drops, - - A melody began to drip - That mingled with a ghostly thrill - The vision-spirit of the ship, - The secret of his broken will. - - Beneath the pines he piped and swayed, - Master of passion and of power; - He was his soul and what he played, - Immortal for a happy hour. - - He, singing into nature’s heart, - Guiding his will by the world’s will, - With deep, unconscious, childlike art - Had sung his soul out and was still. - - And then at evening came the bark - That stirred his dreaming heart’s desire; - It burned slow lights along the dark - That died in glooms of crimson fire. - - The sailors launched a sombre boat, - And bent with music at the oars; - The rhythm throbbing every throat, - And lapsing round the liquid shores, - - Was that true tune the piper sent, - Unto the wave-worn mariners, - When with the beck and ripple blent - He heard that outland song of theirs. - - Silent they rowed him, dip and drip, - The oars beat out an exequy, - They laid him down within the ship, - They loosed a rocket to the sky. - - It broke in many a crimson sphere - That grew to gold and floated far, - And left the sudden shore-line clear, - With one slow-changing, drifting star. - - Then out they shook the magic sails, - That charmed the wind in other seas, - From where the west line pearls and pales, - They waited for a ruffling breeze. - - But in the world there was no stir, - The cordage slacked with never a creak, - They heard the flame begin to purr - Within the lantern at the peak. - - They could not cry, they could not move, - They felt the lure from the charmed sea; - They could not think of home or love - Or any pleasant land to be. - - They felt the vessel dip and trim, - And settle down from list to list; - They saw the sea-plain heave and swim - As gently as a rising mist. - - And down so slowly, down and down, - Rivet by rivet, plank by plank; - A little flood of ocean flown - Across the deck, she sank and sank. - - From knee to breast the water wore, - It crept and crept; ere they were ware - Gone was the angel at the prore, - They felt the water float their hair. - - They saw the salt plain spark and shine, - They threw their faces to the sky; - Beneath a deepening film of brine - They saw the star-flash blur and die. - - She sank and sank by yard and mast, - Sank down the shimmering gradual dark; - A little drooping pennon last - Showed like the black fin of a shark. - - And down she sank till, keeled in sand, - She rested safely balanced true, - With all her upward gazing band, - The piper and the dreaming crew. - - And there, unmarked of any chart, - In unrecorded deeps they lie, - Empearled within the purple heart - Of the great sea for aye and aye. - - Their eyes are ruby in the green - Long shaft of sun that spreads and rays, - And upward with a wizard sheen - A fan of sea-light leaps and plays. - - Tendrils of or and azure creep, - And globes of amber light are rolled, - And in the gloaming of the deep - Their eyes are starry pits of gold. - - And sometimes in the liquid night - The hull is changed, a solid gem, - That glows with a soft stony light, - The lost prince of a diadem. - - And at the keel a vine is quick, - That spreads its bines and works and weaves - O’er all the timbers veining thick - A plenitude of silver leaves. - - - - - AT LES ÉBOULEMENTS. - - - A glamour on the phantom shore - Of golden pallid green, - Gray purple in the flats before, - The river streams between. - - From hazy hamlets, one by one, - Beyond the island bars, - The casements in the setting sun - Flash back in violet stars. - - A brig is straining out for sea, - To Norway or to France she goes, - And all her happy flags are free, - Her sails are flushed with rose. - - - - - THE WOLF. - - - Whoo—whoo— - The rain in the hollow - The wan gray sleet will follow, - The shaggy moor - Will lie at the door, - Heavy with mould, - Dead with cold, - Whoo—whoo;—yu-loô—yu-loô. - - Whoo—whoo— - The wind in the willow, - The snow heaped up for a pillow, - The shell of ice, - Will crush in a trice, - An iron mould, - To have and to hold, - Whoo—whoo;—yu-loô—yu-loô. - - Whoo—whoo— - The frost in the furrow, - Heat takes long to burrow, - The fire on the hearth - Shakes its mirth - At one of God’s poor, - Outside the door, - Whoo—whoo;—yu-loô—yu-loô. - - Whoo—whoo— - Weary and worry him, - Gnaw him, tug him, and carry him; - Dig him a pit, - Shallow and fit, - In the colder cold - It will hold or unfold, - Whoo—whoo;—yu-loô—yu-loô. - - Whoo—whoo— - The steam from the thatches, - The casement tawny in patches; - Look not yet, - You might never forget - The ghost of breath, - Or the leper Death, - Whoo—whoo;—yu-loô—yu-loô. - - - - - RAIN AND THE ROBIN. - - - A robin in the morning, - In the morning early, - Sang a song of warning, - “There’ll be rain, there’ll be rain.” - Very, very clearly - From the orchard - Came the gentle horning, - “There’ll be rain.” - But the hasty farmer - Cut his hay down, - Did not heed the charmer - From the orchard, - And the mower’s clatter - Ceased at noontide, - For with drip and spatter - Down came the rain. - Then the prophet robin - Hidden in the crab-tree - Railed upon the farmer, - “I told you so, I told you so.” - As the rain grew stronger, - And his heart grew prouder, - Notes so full and slow - Coming blither, louder, - “I told you so, I told you so,” - “I told you so.” - - - - - THE DAME REGNANT. - - - Ah! Dame Gossip fabulous! - You have worn the quiet smile, - Till your mouth is drawn as trim - As a Quaker’s beaver brim; - And when rumor runs a mile, - You don’t know the soles he wears, - Never heard the rascal’s name; - If the neighbors bring the shoe, - Tug and tug it won’t fit you; - If it does, ah! shifty Dame, - Rumor’s last must be the same! - Hey! this comedy began - When the earth was blithe and young, - When the less fair of the fair - Daughters of the world of men, - Whispered in their errant hair, - How their sisters of the glance, - Clear and deep of star in blue, - Met the eager sons of God, - In the valley, in the dew, - On the myrtle-scented sod: - And the truants from the spheres - Heard like donging of herd-bells, - In the flow of harp and flute, - How those others in eclipse, - Withered up in jealousies, - Crowning malice in the eyes, - Over malice on the lips, - Hissed their word of hate and lies. - Ah! these truants from the spheres - Learnt the human in the note - Of the goddess, and were ware - How of all the torrent gold - Snakes were half and half was hair. - - Yet the ages were as one - Heap of burnt and calcined stars, - Ere her popular crown was run - In the mould of human fears, - Ere her sceptre had been cast, - Tempered steel with foolish tears. - Now they view her at the last, - Personed like a regnant queen, - Cold as pole-ice, hard as quartz, - Loathly as the livid, lean - Adder of the triple tongue, - Basilisk eyes that reap and glean, - And a mind alert, elate, - With the splendor of her wit, - Springing through a smoky fate, - With a gleam of hell-fire lit. - - And she wanders from her throne - (So these cringing lieges state), - While her shape still glooms it there; - And but give the wizard crone - Two small juttings in the air, - Spiderlike she weaves her web, - From her ancient ventral store, - Till the whole great house is meshed - With her legends, grim and hoar. - Or she starts a quiet mouse, - Feeding in the native cheese, - And a wolf springs from the rind, - Bloated out to what you please. - What she does not say she thinks; - Crafty, with a few dry winks, - Drops her poison in the eye, - Watching while it works and sinks; - When the eye is diamond clear, - Comes she with a slimy sigh, - Bred to catch the dullard ear, - Opening with the formula, - Stereoed to the devil’s phrase - In the human words, “They say;” - Then the burden of the tale - Crawls in after like a snail. - And if the dear vassal’s wild, - Why, her countenance is blank, - And her eye is dull as dulse; - But the finger dwells awhile - Calming on the plunging pulse, - Just for, say, a nunnery smile, - Till with magic overmuch, - All the story is conveyed, - Through the nerves intensive played, - Innuendo of the touch. - - Once afoot the quarry flies, - From the hunter in the mind; - With a prudent, vacant smile, - Dull Saint Virgin drops her eyes, - Gives the word with quiet guile, - Guarding with her sainted wish, - For the error of the tale, - The dear souls from blast and bale. - And the fighter to his trull - Tells his version of the yarn; - With his bull-brain all afire, - Charges down the ruddy rag - Of the world above his ire, - Tramps the tale in slag and mire. - And the comments run from “Pish,” - To the most convenient curse, - In the beggar’s damning purse. - So the story rolls and grows - Crescive as a cloudy head, - Budding silver in the blue, - From black root of thunder bred, - With the lightning splitting through. - Every subject stricken blind - With black fearing of the Dame, - Strained of nerve and lean of loin, - Passes on the strangest talk, - Like a counterfeited coin; - And the fear of her is wild, - Works like acid in the blood, - And the man is worse than child, - Saved by innocent hardihood. - How he supplicates and whines, - When he knows his fame is out, - And sees springing into lines - All the fables, shout on shout. - Thinks to run the talk to earth, - Talk that carries rumor’s lease; - Cloudy talk of vapor birth, - Chases on the plains of peace, - Or where tides of trade convulse; - Something mantled like a shape - Grasps at last with pounding pulse— - Mist he holds; while mocking rings - All the riot sprung anew, - With the flap and clap of wings. - - Nay, my craven, you who fear - All this cackle of the crew, - Carping at your coward ear! - We who know the Dame so well, - Whence she sprang and how she grew, - Do not crown her deep with hell; - She is but an earthly shape - Springing from the parent ape, - Nothing wild with power or eld, - Nothing older than the race; - And this skull-face that you dread, - Is the image of your head. - Here where Comedy is held - Deep in honor as the star, - Spreading sparkle over sea, - You may see the Dame at will, - Nothing formed for dread or dree, - Contemplate her and be still: - She has worn that quiet smile, - Till her mouth is drawn as trim - As a Quaker’s beaver brim: - Her light eyes seem clear of guile, - And her smile is half demure, - Half malicious. Let her play - One of her protean pranks, - Show her fangs and start her prey. - Now she dares the comic sprite, - Laughter only comes to light; - Ripples outward like a flag - Over towers inviolate, - Sparkles April as a brook, - Breaks where sun and shadow flit; - Laughter silver and secure, - From the crystal wells of wit, - Springing sanely, springing pure. - Mark your Dame of many crowns, - How she hardens into sphinx, - When she hears the airy ring - Of the master that she owns, - How, amorphous bulk, she shrinks, - How she trails and leers and winks, - Just a moment of gray rags, - Ere the wind has pounced and packed - All her baggage and her bags - Into limbo, and the dust - Rises in a smoke, and wracked - Drives the cloud in shreds and shags. - Laughter falling coolly clear, - Widens air and broaches sun, - Comes as healing to a fear - But of self and shadow spun: - Self, a lantern-candle, throws - Hugeous spottings on the wall; - Dance the tragic giant Oes, - Rayed from pin-points punctured small, - In the battered shadow-tin - Fused of deed and circumstance: - Coward in the gaping ring, - Bound without and look within, - Learn where fable flows and whence. - - Speech is but the fluid mind, - Reaching outward over life. - Where quick speech is dammed we find - Cactus deserts sharp and dim, - Dead for water, ruin lined, - With a mirage on the rim - Of the sundown. Let speech flow - Like the air, which is the soul - Of the world, from pole to pole; - Shaking in the swamp of death - With the poison bred of heat, - Timing with a tidal breath - The deep swaying of the wheat. - Not till mind is massed as near - Servant of the lucid soul, - Sensitive as ether clear, - Joining planets pole to pole, - Shall we have a dearth of this - Talk that lays the lash on life. - Only when the mind rings true - To the deep-held undertone - Heard where Nature moulds her young, - Will the fancy fail to brew - Noisome liquor for the tongue. - Heighten mind and heighten life, - Heighten comment above lure, - Heighten laughter above strife, - Bred to scourge the fancy pure. - Then will come the days of men, - When the mind will govern power; - When clear speech will spring again, - Flower unto a lovelier flower; - When dear laughter, victor browed, - From her scorning of your Dame, - Will play out a lambent flame - Over life to saneness vowed. - - Contrast to the present hour! - As a sage might leave a coast - Where the cities shambles are, - And the people herded flesh, - Climb the uplands into wood - Where the trees are vined in mesh, - Where noon dreams with eyes of eve, - Where the beck is flecked with gold, - And the silver violets fold, - Under leafage cool and lush, - Where the moss is drenched with sleep, - Where the music-memoried thrush - Broods in dingles dusk and deep, - Upward to the brow of hill, - Where the wind soars cool with scent, - And the twilights end in stars, - Where upon the glimmering plain - Fire-flies with the lights are blent - From the huts and haunts of men, - Jewels in the crown content. - - - - - THE CUP. - - - Here is pleasure; drink it down. - Here is sorrow; drain it dry. - Tilt the goblet, don’t ask why. - Here is madness; down it goes. - Here’s a dagger and a kiss, - Don’t ask what the reason is. - Drink your liquor, no one knows; - Drink it bravely like a lord. - Do not roll a coward eye, - Pain and pleasure is one sword - Hacking out your destiny; - Do not say, “It is not just.” - That word won’t apply to life; - You must drink because you must; - Tilt the goblet, cease the strife. - Here at last is something good, - Just to warm your flagging blood. - Don’t take breath— - At the bottom of the cup - Here is death: - Drink it up. - - - - - THE HAPPY FATALIST. - - - We plough the field, - And harrow the clod, - And hurl the seed. - Trust for trust: - The germ yields, - The wheat brairds, - We gather the sheaf, - Deed for deed: - The stubble moulds, - The chaff is cast, - Dust for dust: - The man is worn, - His days are bound, - But his labor returns, - The child learns - Round for round: - The god is astir, - Firm and free, - Weaving his plan, - Swelling the tree, - Bracing the man: - All is for good, - Sweet or acerb, - Laughter or pain, - Freedom or curb: - Follow your bent, - Cry life is joy, - Cry life is woe, - The god is content, - Impartial in power, - Tranquil—and lo! - Like the kernels in quern, - Each in turn, - Comes to his hour, - Nor fast nor slow: - It is well: even so. - - - - - SONG. - - - When the ash-tree buds and the maples, - And the osier wands are red, - And the fairy sunlight dapples - Dales where the leaves are spread, - The pools are full of spring water, - Winter is dead. - - When the bloodroot blows in the tangle, - And the lithe brooks run, - And the violets gleam and spangle - The glades in the golden sun, - The showers are bright as the sunlight, - April has won. - - When the color is free in the grasses, - And the martins whip the mere, - And the Maryland-yellow-throat passes, - With his whistle quick and clear, - The willow is full of catkins; - May is here. - - Then cut a reed by the river, - Make a song beneath the lime, - And blow with your lips a-quiver, - While your sweetheart carols the rhyme; - The glamour of love, the lyric of life, - The springtime—the springtime. - - - - - A SONG. - - TO B. W. B. - - - The world is spinning for change, - And life has rapid wings; - Oh, one needs a steady heart - Not to falter while he sings. - - But this is made for my Dear One - When we are far apart; - That she may have wherever she goes - A song of mine in her heart. - - A song that will move with a memory - Of something she loves best; - A song that will throb at her waking, - A song that will lull her to rest. - - A song that will serve for an anchor, - Compass, and pilot, and chart; - A song that will bid her remember - That love is the crown of art. - - A song that will bid her remember - The north nights cool and still, - With the thrushes fluting deep, deep, - Deep on the pine-wood hill, - - With a star at her open window, - When the cuckoo wakes with a start: - Oh! can she ever forget me - With a song of mine in her heart? - - - - - SONG. - - - The wind is wild to-night, - In the dark he turns and stirs, - Or he falls into dream and quiet, - In the gloomy heart of the firs. - - He springs upon the trees, - And he shakes the sleeping nest; - And every little water-pool - Has a troubled breast. - - He has come from a weary land, - Where the rivers of memory spring; - Their waters are bitter, are bitter, - And have dampened his wing. - - The very flowers are musing - On something they longed to be, - In a land of peace and promise, - In a province of the sea. - - The birds cry out and are silent, - They are dreaming once again - Of the tawny-throated hollow, - And the fern in the glen. - - And the wind raves out like a spirit, - With his hands hid in his hair, - And my heart is leaping, and leaping, - To follow him—where? - - - - - A SONG. - - - In the ruddy heart of the sunset, - Fading and fading still, - A planet throbs and smoulders, - Over the sapphire hill. - - A mist steals up from the marshes, - Spreading tender and bright; - A heron floats from his haunt in the reeds, - Through the ruby light. - - The elm-trees towered with shadow - Seem dripping and cool with dew; - There’s a sigh in the cedar covert, - But never a breeze comes through. - - A thrush keeps ringing and ringing— - Ringing—now he is still, - There’s a starry light in a window - On the dark, dark hill. - - The home that’s far away - Comes stealing back to me, - With the calling of the thrushes - In the bonny birch-tree. - - My eyes are full of tears - For to-day and yesterday, - For the yearning and the yearning, - And the heart that’s far away. - - - - - SONG. - October 3rd, 1893. - - - Sorrow is come like a swallow to nest, - Winging him up from the wind and the foam; - Mine is the heart that he loves the best, - He dreams of it when he dreams of home. - - Strange! in the daylight off he flies, - Swift to the south away to the sea; - But when in the west the ruby dies, - With the growing stars he comes back to me. - - With the salt, cool wind in his wing, - And the rush of tears that tingle and start, - With a throb at the throat so he cannot sing, - He nestles him into my lonely heart. - - And he tells me of something I cannot name, - Something the sea with the sea-wind sings, - That somehow he and love are the same, - That they float and fly with the same swift wings. - - I cherish and cherish my timid guest, - For oh, he has grown so dear to me - That my heart would break if he left his nest, - And dwelt in the strange land down by the sea. - - - - - A SONG. - - - ’Tis autumn and down in the fields - The buckwheat is browning still: - Gather yourself in your cloak, - The winter is over the hill. - - There’s a cloud of black in the north, - The aurora is smouldering behind, - There are stars in the parting clouds, - And a touch of frost in the wind. - - Down in the icy dew - The crickets are cheering shrill: - “There is time for another song, - Though winter is over the hill.” - - Out of the great black cloud - The aurora leaps and flies, - Pushing its phosphor spikes - In the deeps of the violet skies. - - The moon is wrapped in a film, - She looks wan and chill: - Gather yourself in your cloak, - The winter is over the hill. - - - - - SPRING SONG. - - - Sing me a song of the early spring, - Of the yellow light where the clear air cools, - Of the lithe willows bourgeoning - In the amber pools. - - Sing me a song of the spangled dells, - Where hepaticas tremble in starry groups, - Of the adder-tongue swinging its golden bells - As the light wind swoops. - - Sing me a song of the shallow lakes, - Of the hollow fall of the nimble rill, - Of the trolling rapture the robin wakes - On the windy hill. - - Sing me a song of the gleaming swift, - Of the vivid Maryland-yellow-throat, - Of the vesper sparrow’s silver drift - From the rise remote. - - Sing me a song of the crystal cage, - Where the tender plants in the frames are set, - Where kneels my love Armitage, - Planting the pleasant mignonette. - - Sing me a song of the glow afar, - Of the misty air and the crocus light, - Of the new moon following a silver star - Through the early night. - - - - - SUMMER SONG. - - - Sing me a song of the summer time, - Of the sorrel red and the ruby clover, - Where the garrulous bobolinks lilt and chime - Over and over. - - Sing me a song of the strawberry-bent, - Of the black-cap hiding the heap of stones, - Of the milkweed drowsy with sultry scent, - Where the bee drones. - - Sing me a song of the spring head still, - Of the dewy fern in the solitude, - Of the hermit-thrush and the whippoorwill, - Haunting the wood. - - Sing me a song of the gleaming scythe, - Of the scented hay and the buried wain, - Of the mowers whistling bright and blithe, - In the sunny rain. - - Sing me a song of the quince and the gage, - Of the apricot by the orchard wall, - Where bends my love Armitage, - Gathering the fruit of the windfall. - - Sing me a song of the rustling, slow - Sway of the wheat as the winds croon, - Of the golden disc and the dreaming glow - Of the harvest moon. - - - - - AUTUMN SONG. - - - Sing me a song of the autumn clear, - With the mellow days and the ruddy eves; - Sing me a song of the ending year, - With the piled-up sheaves. - - Sing me a song of the apple bowers, - Of the great grapes the vine-field yields, - Of the ripe peaches bright as flowers, - And the rich hop-fields. - - Sing me a song of the fallen mast, - Of the sharp odor the pomace sheds, - Of the purple beets left last - In the garden beds. - - Sing me a song of the toiling bees, - Of the long flight and the honey won, - Of the white hives under the apple-trees, - In the hazy sun. - - Sing me a song of the thyme and the sage, - Of sweet-marjoram in the garden gray, - Where goes my love Armitage - Pulling the summer savory. - - Sing me a song of the red deep, - The long glow the sun leaves, - Of the swallows taking a last sleep - In the barn eaves. - - - - - WINTER SONG. - - - Sing me a song of the dead world, - Of the great frost deep and still, - Of the sword of fire the wind hurled - On the iron hill. - - Sing me a song of the driving snow, - Of the reeling cloud and the smoky drift, - Where the sheeted wraiths like ghosts go - Through the gloomy rift. - - Sing me a song of the ringing blade, - Of the snarl and shatter the light ice makes, - Of the whoop and the swing of the snow-shoe raid - Through the cedar brakes. - - Sing me a song of the apple-loft, - Of the corn and the nuts and the mounds of meal, - Of the sweeping whir of the spindle soft, - And the spinning-wheel. - - Sing me a song of the open page, - Where the ruddy gleams of the firelight dance, - Where bends my love Armitage, - Reading an old romance. - - Sing me a song of the still nights, - Of the large stars steady and high, - The aurora darting its phosphor lights - In the purple sky. - - - - - THE CANADIAN’S HOME-SONG. - - - There is rain upon the window, - There is wind upon the tree; - The rain is slowly sobbing, - The wind is blowing free: - It bears my weary heart - To my own country. - - I hear the white-throat calling, - Hid in the hazel ring; - Deep in the misty hollows - I hear the sparrows sing; - I see the bloodroot starting, - All silvered with the spring. - - I skirt the buried reed-beds, - In the starry solitude; - My snowshoes creak and whisper, - I have my ready blood. - I hear the lynx-cub yelling - In the gaunt and shaggy wood. - - I hear the wolf-tongued rapid - Howl in the rocky break, - Beyond the pines at the portage - I hear the trapper wake - His _En roulant ma boulé_, - From the clear gloom of the lake. - - Oh! take me back to the homestead, - To the great rooms warm and low, - Where the frost creeps on the casement, - When the year comes in with snow. - Give me, give me the old folk - Of the dear long ago. - - Oh, land of the dusky balsam, - And the darling maple-tree, - Where the cedar buds and berries, - And the pine grows strong and free! - My heart is weary and weary - For my own country. - - - - - MADRIGAL. - - - Snow-drops now begin in snows, - Crocuses to flush, - Gentle scilla buds and blows - Nurtured in the slush; - All about, like tinkling bells, - Falls the ice a-melting; - Ring, dilly dilly,—Sing, dilly dilly,— - Spring is here, - And the wolf is out of his den, O; - With a ren, O; and a fen, O; - And a den, den, den, O; - Sing, dilly dilly. - - Slender moon is floating down - Through a vat of wine, - Bells knoll from the drowsy town, - Din—din—dine; - All about the red robins - Whistle in the dusk; - Ring, dilly dilly,—Sing, dilly dilly,— - Spring is here, - And the lambs are safe in their pen, O; - With a ren, O; and a fen, O; - And a den, den, den, O; - Sing, dilly dilly. - - Comrade virgins clad in green - Quaff the nimble air; - Each one, if her mate’s unseen, - Is the fairest fair; - Bran is hidden in the hedge - Breathing on his reeds; - Ring, dilly dilly,—Sing, dilly dilly,— - Spring is here, - And maidens beware of the men, O; - With a ren, O; and a fen, O; - And a den, den, den, O; - Sing, dilly dilly. - - - - - WORDS AFTER MUSIC. - - - Where go all the melodies fair, - They that flow and fade in air? - Was their beauty all foredone? - (Ah, no—no!) - Pulse and cadence truth did tell, - Vowed to music’s magic spell, - Passionate and ineffable. - - Where do all the roses go, - They that die before the snow? - Was their beauty all forsworn? - (Ah, no—no!) - Flush and odor vowed aright, - When they promised rare delight, - Perennial and exquisite. - - Fragile flowers and melodies - Claim a dual paradise, - Beauty is not feof to death; - (Ah, no—no!) - Beauty lives in essence free, - In the inner heart we see - Beauty’s immortality. - - - - -THIS BOOK IS PRINTED DURING OCTOBER 1898 BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS -CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS - - - - - * * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s note: - -On Page 55, it was not clear if the following line should end with a -comma or a semi-colon: - - Of the snarl and shatter the light ice makes, - -On Page 20, it was not clear if _fail_ should read _fall_: - - To fail below the hill. - -The author’s choice of spelling and punctuation has been maintained. - -Repeating titles in the front of the book have been reduced. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LABOR AND THE ANGEL*** - - -******* This file should be named 53445-0.txt or 53445-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/3/4/4/53445 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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