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Poems
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THE CHIPMUNK
I He makes a roadway of the crumbling fence, Or on the fallen tree,—brown as a leaf Fall stripes with russet,—gambols down the dense Green twilight of the woods. We see not whence He comes, nor whither (in a time so brief) He vanishes—swift carrier of some Fay, Some pixy steed that haunts our child-belief— A goblin glimpse upon some wildwood way.II What harlequin mood of nature qualified Him so with happiness? and limbed him with Such young activity as winds, that ride The ripples, have, dancing on every side? As sunbeams know, that urge the sap and pith Through hearts of trees? yet made him to delight, Gnome-like, in darkness,—like a moonlight myth,— Lairing in labyrinths of the under night.III Here, by a rock, beneath the moss, a hole Leads to his home, the den wherein he sleeps; Lulled by near noises of the laboring mole Tunneling its mine—like some ungainly Troll— Or by the tireless cricket there that keeps Picking its rusty and monotonous lute; Or slower sounds of grass that creeps and creeps, And trees unrolling mighty root on root.IV Such is the music of his sleeping hours. Day hath another—'tis a melody He trips to, made by the assembled flowers, And light and fragrance laughing 'mid the bowers, And ripeness busy with the acorn-tree. Such strains, perhaps, as filled with mute amaze (The silent music of Earth's ecstasy) The Satyr's soul, the Faun of classic days.THE WILD IRIS
That day we wandered 'mid the hills,—so lone Clouds are not lonelier, the forest lay In emerald darkness round us. Many a stone And gnarly root, gray-mossed, made wild our way: And many a bird the glimmering light along Showered the golden bubbles of its song. Then in the valley, where the brook went by, Silvering the ledges that it rippled from,— An isolated slip of fallen sky, Epitomizing heaven in its sum,— An iris bloomed—blue, as if, flower-disguised, The gaze of Spring had there materialized. I have forgotten many things since then— Much beauty and much happiness and grief; And toiled and dreamed among my fellow-men, Rejoicing in the knowledge life is brief. "'Tis winter now," so says each barren bough; And face and hair proclaim 'tis winter now. I would forget the gladness of that spring! I would forget that day when she and I, Between the bird-song and the blossoming, Went hand in hand beneath the soft May sky!— Much is forgotten, yea—and yet, and yet, The things we would we never can forget. Nor I how May then minted treasuries Of crowfoot gold; and molded out of light The sorrel's cups, whose elfin chalices Of limpid spar were streaked with rosy white: Nor all the stars of twinkling spiderwort, And mandrake moons with which her brows were girt. But most of all, yea, it were well for me, Me and my heart, that I forget that flower, The blue wild iris, azure fleur-de-lis, That she and I together found that hour. Its recollection can but emphasize The pain of loss, remindful of her eyes.DROUTH
I The hot sunflowers by the glaring pike Lift shields of sultry brass; the teasel tops, Pink-thorned, advance with bristling spike on spike Against the furious sunlight. Field and copse Are sick with summer: now, with breathless stops, The locusts cymbal; now grasshoppers beat Their castanets: and rolled in dust, a team,— Like some mean life wrapped in its sorry dream,— An empty wagon rattles through the heat.II Where now the blue wild iris? flowers whose mouths Are moist and musky? Where the sweet-breathed mint, That made the brook-bank herby? Where the South's Wild morning-glories, rich in hues, that hint At coming showers that the rainbows tint? Where all the blossoms that the wildwood knows? The frail oxalis hidden in its leaves; The Indian-pipe, pale as a soul that grieves; The freckled touch-me-not and forest rose.III Dead! dead! all dead beside the drouth-burnt brook, Shrouded in moss or in the shriveled grass. Where waved their bells, from which the wild-bee shook The dewdrop once,—gaunt, in a nightmare mass, The rank weeds crowd; through which the cattle pass, Thirsty and lean, seeking some meager spring, Closed in with thorns, on which stray bits of wool The panting sheep have left, that sought the cool, From morn till evening wearily wandering.IV No bird is heard; no throat to whistle awake The sleepy hush; to let its music leak Fresh, bubble-like, through bloom-roofs of the brake: Only the green-gray heron, famine-weak,— Searching the stale pools of the minnowless creek,— Utters its call; and then the rain-crow, too, False prophet now, croaks to the stagnant air; While overhead,—still as if painted there,— A buzzard hangs, black on the burning blue.RAIN
Around, the stillness deepened; then the grain Went wild with wind; and every briery lane Was swept with dust; and then, tempestuous black, Hillward the tempest heaved a monster back, That on the thunder leaned as on a cane; And on huge shoulders bore a cloudy pack, That gullied gold from many a lightning-crack: One big drop splashed and wrinkled down the pane, And then field, hill, and wood were lost in rain. At last, through clouds,—as from a cavern hewn. Into night's heart,—the sun burst angry roon; And every cedar, with its weight of wet, Against the sunset's fiery splendor set, Frightened to beauty, seemed with rubies strewn: Then in drenched gardens, like sweet phantoms met, Dim odors rose of pink and mignonette; And in the east a confidence, that soon Grew to the calm assurance of the moon.AT SUNSET
Into the sunset's turquoise marge The moon dips, like a pearly barge Enchantment sails through magic seas To faeryland Hesperides, Over the hills and away. Into the fields, in ghost-gray gown, The young-eyed Dusk comes slowly down; Her apron filled with stars she stands, And one or two slip from her hands Over the hills and away. Above the wood's black caldron bends The witch-faced Night and, muttering, blends The dew and heat, whose bubbles make The mist and musk that haunt the brake Over the hills and away. Oh, come with me, and let us go Beyond the sunset lying low; Beyond the twilight and the night, Into Love's kingdom of long light, Over the hills and away.THE LEAF-CRICKET
I Small twilight singer Of dew and mist: thou ghost-gray, gossamer winger Of dusk's dim glimmer, How chill thy note sounds; how thy wings of shimmer Vibrate, soft-sighing, Meseems, for Summer that is dead or dying. I stand and listen, And at thy song the garden-beds, that glisten With rose and lily, Seem touched with sadness; and the tuberose chilly, Breathing around its cold and colorless breath, Fills the pale evening with wan hints of death.II I see thee quaintly Beneath the leaf; thy shell-shaped winglets faintly— (As thin as spangle Of cobwebbed rain)—held up at airy angle; I hear thy tinkle With faery notes the silvery stillness sprinkle; Investing wholly The moonlight with divinest melancholy: Until, in seeming, I see the Spirit of Summer sadly dreaming Amid her ripened orchards, russet-strewn, Her great, grave eyes fixed on the harvest-moon.III As dewdrops beady; As mist minute, thy notes ring low and reedy: The vaguest vapor Of melody, now near; now, like some taper Of sound, far-fading— Thou will-o'-wisp of music aye evading. Among the bowers, The fog-washed stalks of Autumn's weeds and flowers, By hill and hollow, I hear thy murmur and in vain I follow— Thou jack-o'-lantern voice, thou pixy cry, Thou dirge, that tellest Beauty she must die.IV And when the frantic Wild winds of Autumn with the dead leaves antic; And walnuts scatter The mire of lanes; and dropping acorns patter In grove and forest, Like some frail grief with the rude blast thou warrest, Sending thy slender Far cry against the gale, that, rough, untender, Untouched of sorrow, Sweeps thee aside, where, haply, I to-morrow Shall find thee lying—tiny, cold and crushed, Thy weak wings folded and thy music hushed.THE WIND OF WINTER
The Winter Wind, the wind of death, Who knocked upon my door, Now through the keyhole entereth, Invisible and hoar: He breathes around his icy breath And treads the flickering floor. I heard him, wandering in the night, Tap at my windowpane; With ghostly fingers, snowy white, I heard him tug in vain, Until the shuddering candlelight Did cringe with fear and strain. The fire, awakened by his voice, Leapt up with frantic arms, Like some wild babe that greets with noise Its father home who storms, With rosy gestures that rejoice, And crimson kiss that warms. Now in the hearth he sits and, drowned Among the ashes, blows; Or through the room goes stealing round On cautious-creeping toes, Deep-mantled in the drowsy sound Of night that sleets and snows. And oft, like some thin faery-thing, The stormy hush amid, I hear his captive trebles sing Beneath the kettle's lid; Or now a harp of elfland string In some dark cranny hid. Again I hear him, implike, whine, Cramped in the gusty flue; Or knotted in the resinous pine Raise goblin cry and hue, While through the smoke his eyeballs shine, A sooty red and blue. At last I hear him, nearing dawn, Take up his roaring broom, And sweep wild leaves from wood and lawn, And from the heavens the gloom, To show the gaunt world lying wan, And morn's cold rose a-bloom.THE OWLET
I When dusk is drowned in drowsy dreams, And slow the hues of sunset die; When firefly and moth go by, And in still streams the new moon seems Another moon and sky: Then from the hills there comes a cry, The owlet's cry: A shivering voice that sobs and screams, With terror screams:— "Who is it, who is it, who-o-o? Who rides through the dusk and dew, With a pair of horns, As thin as thorns, And face a bubble-blue?— Who, who, who! Who is it, who is it, who-o-o?"II When night has dulled the lily's white, And opened wide the moonflower's eyes; When pale mists rise and veil the skies, And round the height in whispering flight The night-wind sounds and sighs: Then in the wood again it cries, The owlet cries: A shivering voice that calls in fright, In maundering fright:— "Who is it, who is it, who-o-o? Who walks with a shuffling shoe 'Mid the gusty trees, With a face none sees, And a form as ghostly, too?— Who, who, who! Who is it, who is it, who-o-o?"III When midnight leans a listening ear And tinkles on her insect lutes; When 'mid the roots the cricket flutes, And marsh and mere, now far, now near, A jack-o'-lantern foots: Then o'er the pool again it hoots, The owlet hoots: A voice that shivers as with fear, That cries with fear:— "Who is it, who is it, who-o-o? Who creeps with his glowworm crew Above the mire With a corpse-light fire, As only dead men do?— Who, who, who! Who is it, who is it, who-o-o?"EVENING ON THE FARM
From out the hills where twilight stands, Above the shadowy pasture lands, With strained and strident cry, Beneath pale skies that sunset bands, The bull-bats fly. A cloud hangs over, strange of shape, And, colored like the half-ripe grape, Seems some uneven stain On heaven's azure; thin as crape, And blue as rain. By ways, that sunset's sardonyx O'erflares, and gates the farm-boy clicks, Through which the cattle came, The mullein-stalks seem giant wicks Of downy flame. From woods no glimmer enters in, Above the streams that, wandering, win To where the wood pool bids, Those haunters of the dusk begin,— The katydids. Adown the dark the firefly marks Its flight in gold and emerald sparks; And, loosened from his chain, The shaggy mastiff bounds and barks, And barks again. Each breeze brings scents of hill-heaped hay; And now an owlet, far away, Cries twice or thrice, "T-o-o-w-h-o-o"; And cool dim moths of mottled gray Flit through the dew. The silence sounds its frog-bassoon, Where, on the woodland creek's lagoon,— Pale as a ghostly girl Lost 'mid the trees,—looks down the moon With face of pearl. Within the shed where logs, late hewed, Smell forest-sweet, and chips of wood Make blurs of white and brown, The brood-hen cuddles her warm brood Of teetering down. The clattering guineas in the tree Din for a time; and quietly The henhouse, near the fence, Sleeps, save for some brief rivalry Of cocks and hens. A cowbell tinkles by the rails, Where, streaming white in foaming pails, Milk makes an uddery sound; While overhead the black bat trails Around and round. The night is still. The slow cows chew A drowsy cud. The bird that flew And sang is in its nest. It is the time of falling dew, Of dreams and rest. The beehives sleep; and round the walk, The garden path, from stalk to stalk The bungling beetle booms, Where two soft shadows stand and talk Among the blooms. The stars are thick: the light is dead That dyed the west: and Drowsyhead, Tuning his cricket-pipe, Nods, and some apple, round and red, Drops over-ripe. Now down the road, that shambles by, A window, shining like an eye Through climbing rose and gourd, Shows Age and young Rusticity Seated at board.THE LOCUST
Thou pulse of hotness, who, with reedlike breast, Makest meridian music, long and loud, Accentuating summer!—Dost thy best To make the sunbeams fiercer, and to crowd With lonesomeness the long, close afternoon— When Labor leans, swart-faced and beady-browed, Upon his sultry scythe—thou tangible tune Of heat, whose waves incessantly arise Quivering and clear beneath the cloudless skies. Thou singest, and upon his haggard hills Drouth yawns and rubs his heavy eyes and wakes; Brushes the hot hair from his face; and fills The land with death as sullenly he takes Downward his dusty way. 'Midst woods and fields At every pool his burning thirst he slakes: No grove so deep, no bank so high it shields A spring from him; no creek evades his eye: He needs but look and they are withered dry. Thou singest, and thy song is as a spell Of somnolence to charm the land with sleep; A thorn of sound that pierces dale and dell, Diffusing slumber over vale and steep. Sleepy the forest, nodding sleepy boughs; Sleepy the pastures with their sleepy sheep: Sleepy the creek where sleepily the cows Stand knee-deep; and the very heaven seems Sleepy and lost in undetermined dreams. Art thou a rattle that Monotony, Summer's dull nurse, old sister of slow Time, Shakes for Day's peevish pleasure, who in glee Takes its discordant music for sweet rhyme? Or oboe that the Summer Noontide plays, Sitting with Ripeness 'neath the orchard tree, Trying repeatedly the same shrill phrase, Until the musky peach with weariness Drops, and the hum of murmuring bees grows less?THE DEAD DAY
The west builds high a sepulcher Of cloudy granite and of gold, Where twilight's priestly hours inter The Day like some great king of old. A censer, rimmed with silver fire, The new moon swings above his tomb; While, organ-stops of God's own choir, Star after star throbs in the gloom. And Night draws near, the sadly sweet— A nun whose face is calm and fair— And kneeling at the dead Day's feet Her soul goes up in mists like prayer. In prayer, we feel through dewy gleam And flowery fragrance, and—above All earth—the ecstasy and dream That haunt the mystic heart of love.THE OLD WATER MILL
Wild ridge on ridge the wooded hills arise, Between whose breezy vistas gulfs of skies Pilot great clouds like towering argosies, And hawk and buzzard breast the azure breeze. With many a foaming fall and glimmering reach Of placid murmur, under elm and beech, The creek goes twinkling through long gleams and glooms Of woodland quiet, summered with perfumes: The creek, in whose clear shallows minnow-schools Glitter or dart; and by whose deeper pools The blue kingfishers and the herons haunt; That, often startled from the freckled flaunt Of blackberry-lilies—where they feed or hide— Trail a lank flight along the forestside With eery clangor. Here a sycamore Smooth, wave-uprooted, builds from shore to shore A headlong bridge; and there, a storm-hurled oak Lays a long dam, where sand and gravel choke The water's lazy way. Here mistflower blurs Its bit of heaven; there the ox-eye stirs Its gloaming hues of pearl and gold; and here, A gray, cool stain, like dawn's own atmosphere, The dim wild carrot lifts its crumpled crest: And over all, at slender flight or rest, The dragonflies, like coruscating rays Of lapis-lazuli and chrysoprase, Drowsily sparkle through the summer days: And, dewlap-deep, here from the noontide heat The bell-hung cattle find a cool retreat; And through the willows girdling the hill, Now far, now near, borne as the soft winds will, Comes the low rushing of the water-mill. Ah, lovely to me from a little child, How changed the place! wherein once, undefiled, The glad communion of the sky and stream Went with me like a presence and a dream. Where once the brambled meads and orchardlands, Poured ripe abundance down with mellow hands Of summer; and the birds of field and wood Called to me in a tongue I understood; And in the tangles of the old rail-fence Even the insect tumult had some sense, And every sound a happy eloquence: And more to me than wisest books can teach The wind and water said; whose words did reach My soul, addressing their magnificent speech,— Raucous and rushing,—from the old mill-wheel, That made the rolling mill-cogs snore and reel, Like some old ogre in a faerytale Nodding above his meat and mug of ale. How memory takes me back the ways that lead— As when a boy—through woodland and through mead! To orchards fruited; or to fields in bloom; Or briery fallows, like a mighty room, Through which the winds swing censers of perfume, And where deep blackberries spread miles of fruit;— A wildwood feast, that stayed the plowboy's foot When to the tasseling acres of the corn He drove his team, fresh in the primrose morn; And from the liberal banquet, nature lent, Plucked dewy handfuls as he whistling went.— A boy once more, I stand with sunburnt feet And watch the harvester sweep down the wheat; Or laze with warm limbs in the unstacked straw Near by the thresher, whose insatiate maw Devours the sheaves, hot-drawling out its hum— Like some great sleepy bee, above a bloom, Made drunk with honey—while, grown big with grain, The bulging sacks receive the golden rain. Again I tread the valley, sweet with hay, And hear the bobwhite calling far away, Or wood-dove cooing in the elder-brake; Or see the sassafras bushes madly shake As swift, a rufous instant, in the glen The red fox leaps and gallops to his den: Or, standing in the violet-colored gloam, Hear roadways sound with holiday riding home From church or fair, or country barbecue, Which half the county to some village drew. How spilled with berries were its summer hills, And strewn with walnuts all its autumn rills!— And chestnuts too! burred from the spring's long flowers; June's, when their tree-tops streamed delirious showers Of blossoming silver, cool, crepuscular, And like a nebulous radiance shone afar.— And maples! how their sappy hearts would pour Rude troughs of syrup, when the winter hoar Steamed with the sugar-kettle, day and night, And, red, the snow was streaked with firelight. Then it was glorious! the mill-dam's edge One slope of frosty crystal, laid a ledge Of pearl across; above which, sleeted trees Tossed arms of ice, that, clashing in the breeze, Tinkled the ringing creek with icicles, Thin as the peal of far-off elfin bells: A sound that in my city dreams I hear, That brings before me, under skies that clear, The old mill in its winter garb of snow, Its frozen wheel like a hoar beard below, And its west windows, two deep eyes aglow. Ah, ancient mill, still do I picture o'er Thy cobwebbed stairs and loft and grain-strewn floor; Thy door,—like some brown, honest hand of toil, And honorable with service of the soil,— Forever open; to which, on his back The prosperous farmer bears his bursting sack, And while the miller measures out his toll, Again I hear, above the cogs' loud roll,— That makes stout joist and rafter groan and sway,— The harmless gossip of the passing day: Good country talk, that says how so-and-so Lived, died, or wedded: how curculio And codling-moth play havoc with the fruit, Smut ruins the corn and blight the grapes to boot: Or what is news from town: next county fair: How well the crops are looking everywhere:— Now this, now that, on which their interests fix, Prospects for rain or frost, and politics. While, all around, the sweet smell of the meal Filters, warm-pouring from the rolling wheel Into the bin; beside which, mealy white, The miller looms, dim in the dusty light. Again I see the miller's home between The crinkling creek and hills of beechen green: Again the miller greets me, gaunt and brown, Who oft o'erawed my boyhood with his frown And gray-browed mien: again he tries to reach My youthful soul with fervid scriptural speech.— For he, of all the countryside confessed, The most religious was and goodliest; A Methodist, who at all meetings led; Prayed with his family ere they went to bed. No books except the Bible had he read— At least so seemed it to my younger head.— All things of Heaven and Earth he'd prove by this, Be it a fact or mere hypothesis: For to his simple wisdom, reverent, "The Bible says" was all of argument.— God keep his soul! his bones were long since laid Among the sunken gravestones in the shade Of those dark-lichened rocks, that wall around The family burying-ground with cedars crowned: Where bristling teasel and the brier combine With clambering wood-rose and the wildgrape-vine To hide the stone whereon his name and dates Neglect, with mossy hand, obliterates.ARGONAUTS
With argosies of dawn he sails, And triremes of the dusk, The Seas of Song, whereon the gales Are myths that trail wild musk. He hears the hail of Siren bands From headlands sunset-kissed; The Lotus-eaters wave pale hands Within a land of mist. For many a league he hears the roar Of the Symplegades; And through the far foam of its shore The Isle of Sappho sees. All day he looks, with hazy lids, At gods who cleave the deep; All night he hears the Nereïds Sing their wild hearts asleep. When heaven thunders overhead, And hell upheaves the Vast, Dim faces of the ocean's dead Gaze at him from each mast. He but repeats the oracle That bade him first set sail; And cheers his soul with, "All is well! Go on! I will not fail." Behold! he sails no earthly bark And on no earthly sea, Who down the years into the dark,— Divine of destiny,— Holds to his purpose,—ships of Greece,— Ideal-steered afar, For whom awaits the Golden Fleece, The fame that is his star."THE MORN THAT BREAKS ITS HEART OF GOLD"
From an ode "In Commemoration of the Founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony." The morn that breaks its heart of gold Above the purple hills; The eve, that spills Its nautilus splendor where the sea is rolled; The night, that leads the vast procession in Of stars and dreams,— The beauty that shall never die or pass:— The winds, that spin Of rain the misty mantles of the grass, And thunder raiment of the mountain-streams; The sunbeams, penciling with gold the dusk Green cowls of ancient woods; The shadows, thridding, veiled with musk, The moon-pathed solitudes, Call to my Fancy, saying, "Follow! follow!" Till, following, I see,— Fair as a cascade in a rainbowed hollow,— A dream, a shape, take form, Clad on with every charm,— The vision of that Ideality, Which lured the pioneer in wood and hill, And beckoned him from earth and sky; The dream that cannot die, Their children's children did fulfill, In stone and iron and wood, Out of the solitude, And by a stalwart act Create a mighty fact— A Nation, now that stands Clad on with hope and beauty, strength and song, Eternal, young and strong, Planting her heel on wrong, Her starry banner in triumphant hands…. Within her face the rose Of Alleghany dawns; Limbed with Alaskan snows, Floridian starlight in her eyes,— Eyes stern as steel yet tender as a fawn's,— And in her hair The rapture of her rivers; and the dare, As perishless as truth, That o'er the crags of her Sierras flies, Urging the eagle ardor through her veins, Behold her where, Around her radiant youth, The spirits of the cataracts and plains, The genii of the floods and forests, meet, In rainbow mists circling her brow and feet: The forces vast that sit In session round her; powers paraclete, That guard her presence; awful forms and fair, Making secure her place; Guiding her surely as the worlds through space Do laws sidereal; edicts, thunder-lit, Of skyed eternity, in splendor borne On planetary wings of night and morn.* * * * * From her high place she sees Her long procession of accomplished acts, Cloud-winged refulgences Of thoughts in steel and stone, of marble dreams, Lift up tremendous battlements, Sun-blinding, built of facts; While in her soul she seems, Listening, to hear, as from innumerable tents, Æonian thunder, wonder, and applause Of all the heroic ages that are gone; Feeling secure That, as her Past, her Future shall endure, As did her Cause When redly broke the dawn Of fierce rebellion, and, beneath its star, The firmaments of war Poured down infernal rain, And North and South lay bleeding mid their slain. And now, no less, shall her great Cause prevail, More so in peace than war, Through the thrilled wire and electric rail, Carrying her message far: Shaping her dream Within the brain of steam, That, with a myriad hands, Labors unceasingly, and knits her lands In firmer union; joining plain and stream With steel; and binding shore to shore With bands of iron;—nerves and arteries, Along whose adamant forever pour Her concrete thoughts, her tireless energies.
