s: And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees;


s: But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze


s: Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days


s: Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock--


s: When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.


s: The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,


s: And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;


s: The stubble in the furries--kindo' lonesome-like, but still


s: A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;


s: The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;


s: The hosses in theyr stalls below--the clover overhead!--


s: O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,


s: Then your apples all is getherd, and the ones a feller keeps


s: Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;


s: And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through


s: As the Angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on


s: I'd want to 'commodate 'em--all the whole-indurin' flock--


s: Yea, she hath passed hereby, and blessed the sheaves,


s: And the great garths, and stacks, and quiet farms,


s: And all the tawny, and the crimson leaves.


s: Yea, she hath passed with poppies in her arms,


s: Under the star of dusk, through stealing mist,


s: And blessed the earth, and gone, while no man wist.


s: With slow, reluctant feet, and weary eyes,


s: And eye-lids heavy with the coming sleep,


s: With small breasts lifted up in stress of sighs,


s: She passed, as shadows pass, among the sheep;


s: While the earth dreamed, and only I was ware


s: Of that faint fragrance blown from her soft hair.


s: The land lay steeped in peace of silent dreams;


s: There was no sound amid the sacred boughs.


s: And wept, and weep until she come again.


s: Spice high the bowl, and drink your fill!


s: Thank heaven, at last the summer's done!


s: Come, friend, my fire is burning bright,


s: How clear it glows! (there's frost to-night,)


s: You've been to "Richard" Ah! you've seen


s: For drip, drip, drip, from bare-branch tip,


s: Hark you such sound as quivers?  Kings will hear,


s: As kings have heard, and tremble on their thrones;


s: The old will feel the weight of mossy stones;


s: The young alone will laugh and scoff at fear.


s: It is the tread of armies marching near,


s: From scarlet lands to lands forever pale;


s: And it is hands that grope at ghostly doors;


s: And romp of spirit-children on the pave;


s: It is such sound as death; and, after all,


s: 'Tis but the forest letting dead leaves fall.


s: When the wind works against us in the dark,


s: And whispers with a sort of stifled bark,


s: How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,--


s: Till even the comforting barn grows far away


s: While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,


s: But let him howl till he crack his jowl,


s: And scowling stand, with his wrinkled hand


s: And, rustling, chime to the tinkling rime


s: Let his baleful breath shed blight and death


s: Let him push at the door,--in the chimney roar,


s: Let him in at us spy with his icicle eye,


s: Let him gnaw, forsooth, with his freezing tooth,


s: But we care not a whit, as we jovial sit


s: Come, lads, let's sing, till the rafters ring;


s: From our snug fire-side this Christmas-tide


s: The Frost looked forth, one still, clear night,


s: And he said, "Now I shall be out of sight;


s: So through the valley and over the height


s: I will not go like that blustering train,


s: The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain,


s: Who make so much bustle and noise in vain,


s: Then he went to the mountain, and powdered its crest,


s: He climbed up the trees, and their boughs he dressed


s: With diamonds and pearls, and over the breast


s: That he hung on its margin, far and near,


s: He went to the windows of those who slept,


s: Wherever he breathed, wherever he stepped,


s: Most beautiful things.  There were flowers and trees,


s: There were bevies of birds and swarms of bees,


s: There were cities, thrones, temples, and towers, and these


s: But he did one thing that was hardly fair,--


s: He peeped in the cupboard, and, finding there


s: That all had forgotten for him to prepare,--


s: I'll bite this basket of fruit," said he;


s: "This costly pitcher I'll burst in three,


s: And the glass of water they've left for me


s: Shall 'tchick!' to tell them I'm drinking."


s: One night came Winter noiselessly and leaned


s: In the deep stillness of his heart convened


s: Leaves, and ephemera, and stars of earth,


s: White spirits loosed from bonds of mortal birth,


s: He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!  You may trace his


s: On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill's


s: He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes! on the rushing


s: He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes! and the quiet lake


s: The trees, all spectral and still and white,


s: Stand up like ghosts in the failing light,


s: And fade and faint with the blinded day.


s: And still is the banner of storm unfurled,


s: Sleep, white world, in thy winding-sheet!


s: Clouds may thicken, and storm-winds breathe:


s: The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray,


s: From the chambers beyond that misty veil;


s: Rush prone from the sky like summer hail.


s: All, dropping swiftly, or settling slow,


s: Meet, and are still in the depths below;


s: Here delicate snow-stars, out of the cloud,


s: Like spangles dropped from the glistening crowd


s: All drowned in the dark and silent lake.


s: From their chilly birth-cloud, dim and gray,


s: Are joined in their fall, and, side by side,


s: As friend with friend, or husband with wife,


s: Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste


s: Stream down the snows, till the air is white,


s: They fling themselves from their shadowy height.


s: The fair, frail creatures of middle sky,


s: What speed they make, with their grave so nigh;


s: Thou thinkest of friends, the good and dear,


s: Like these fair children of cloud and frost,


s: That glisten a moment and then are lost,--


s: The cloud and the water no more is seen;


s: And heavenly thoughts, as soft and white


s: Ale that's bright, and wine that's mellow!


s: And the winter winds are wearily sighing:


s: He gave me a friend, and a true true-love,


s: The night is starry and cold, my friend,


s: And the New-year, blithe and bold, my friend,


s: The cricket chirps; the light burns low;


s: There's a new foot on the floor, my friend,


s: Through times that wear and forms that fade,


s: Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own,


s: The woods that are my solace and delight,


s: Which I more covet than a prince's throne,


s: (Light heart, light foot, light food, and slumber light,


s: These lights shall light us to old age's gate,


s: While monarchs, whom rebellious dreams affright,


s: Heavy with fear, death's fearful summons wait;)


s: Whilst here I wander, pleased to be alone,


s: Weighing in thought the worlds no-happiness,


s: Since so plain joys the woody life can bless:


s: Then live who may where honied words prevail,


s: I with the deer, and with the nightingale!


s: Where ill thoughts die and good are born--


s: Tall, somber, grim, against the morning sky


s: They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs,


s: Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully,


s: Tall, somber, grim, they stand with dusky gleams


s: Brightening to gold within the woodland's core,


s: Beneath the gracious noontide's tranquil beams,--


s: But the weird winds of morning sigh no more.


s: A stillness, strange, divine, ineffable,


s: Broods round and o'er them in the wind's surcease,


s: And on each tinted copse and shimmering dell


s: Rests the mute rapture of deep hearted peace.


s: Last, sunset comes--the solemn joy and might


s: Borne from the West when cloudless day declines--


s: Low, flute-like breezes sweep the waves of light,


s: And, lifting dark green tresses of the pines,


s: Till every lock is luminous, gently float,


s: Fraught with hale odors up the heavens afar,


s: To faint when twilight on her virginal throat


s: Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star.


s: That where man sees but withered leaves,


s: 'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger


s: The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.


s: There, like the wind through woods in riot,


s: What do we plant when we plant the tree?


s: We plant the ship, which will cross the sea.


s: We plant the planks to withstand the gales--


s: The keel, the keelson, the beam, the knee;


s: We plant the ship when we plant the tree.


s: We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors,


s: We plant the studding, the lath, the doors,


s: The beams and siding, all parts that be;


s: We plant the house when we plant the tree.


s: We plant the spire that out-towers the crag,


s: We plant the staff for our country's flag,


s: We plant the shade, from the hot sun free;


s: We plant all these when we plant the tree.


s: I love thee when thy swelling buds appear,


s: And one by one their tender leaves unfold,


s: As if they knew that warmer suns were near,


s: Nor longer sought to hide from winter's cold;


s: And when with darker growth thy leaves are seen


s: To veil from view the early robin's nest,


s: I love to lie beneath thy waving screen,


s: With limbs by summer's heat and toil oppressed;


s: And when the autumn winds have stripped thee bare,


s: And round thee lies the smooth, untrodden snow,


s: When naught is thine that made thee once so fair,


s: And through thy leafless arms to look above


s: On stars that brighter beam when most we need their love.


s: Here's health and renown to his broad green crown,


s: There's fear in his frown when the sun goes down,


s: And he showeth his might on a wild midnight,


s: When the storms through his branches shout.


s: Then here's to the oak, the brave old oak,


s: And still flourish he, a hale green tree,


s: In the days of old, when the spring with cold


s: Through the grass at his feet crept maidens sweet,


s: They are gone, they are dead, in the churchyard laid,


s: He saw the rare times when the Christmas chimes


s: When the squire's wide hall and the cottage small


s: But he never shall send our ancient friend


s: I there've a-climbed, an' there've a-zwung,


s: The foamy stream, wi' white-skinned lim's.


s: 'S the girt woak tree that's in the dell.


s: Wi' love that burned but thought noo harm,


s: His lwonesome sheade vor harmless sheep;


s: Wherewith young men and maids distressed,


s: The deep seclusion of this forest path,--


s: O'er which the green boughs weave a canopy;


s: Spread dim a carpet; where the Twilight hath


s: Her cool abode; and, sweet as aftermath,


s: Wood-fragrance roams,--has so enchanted me,


s: That yonder blossoming bramble seems to be


s: Has so enspelled me with tradition's dreams,


s: That every foam-white stream that, twinkling, flows,


s: And every bird that flutters wings of tan,


s: Wild woodland music on the pipes of Pan.


s: Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;


s: The eye that contemplates it well perceives


s: As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.


s: Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen,


s: No grazing cattle, through their prickly round,


s: But, as they grow where nothing is to fear,


s: Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.


s: I love to view these things with curious eyes,


s: Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant rhyme,--


s: Thus, though abroad, perchance, I might appear


s: To those who on my leisure would intrude,


s: Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.


s: And should my youth--as youth is apt, I know,--


s: Till the smooth temper of my age should be


s: And as, when all the summer trees are seen


s: The Holly-leaves their fadeless hues display


s: But when the bare and wintry woods we see,


s: What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree?--


s: So, serious should my youth appear among


s: So would I seem, amid the young and gay,


s: The elm lets fall its leaves before the frost,


s: The trees are barren when the summer's lost:


s: But one tree keeps its goodness all the year.


s: Green pine, unchanging as the days go by,


s: My shelter from all winds, my own strong pine,


s: 'Tis spring, 'tis summer, still, while thou art mine.


s: First spent its sweet and sportive hour;


s: The poplars are felled; farewell to the shade;


s: And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade;


s: The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,


s: Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.


s: Twelve years have elapsed since I first took a view


s: Of my favorite field, and the bank where they grew;


s: And now in the grass behold they are laid,


s: And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade.


s: The blackbird has fled to another retreat,


s: Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat;


s: And the scene where his melody charmed me before


s: Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.


s: And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,


s: With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head,


s: Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.


s: 'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,


s: To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;


s: Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments, I see,


s: Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast,


s: Shall haunt, and sing, and hide her nest;


s: Flowers for the sick girl's silent room,


s: While children come, with cries of glee,


s: Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth,


s: Shall think of childhood's careless day,


s: And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower,


s: The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower.


s: 'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes,


s: Right good, when Spring awakes her flute,


s: These parched and stunted branches, pink


s: And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings,


s: Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.


s: Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child.


s: The flood-gates are open, away to the sea.


s: To the golden sands, and the leaping bar,


s: And the taintless tide that awaits me afar.


s: Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again,


s: Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.


s: And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,


s: And bubbling and troubling and doubling,


s: And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,


s: And clattering and battering and shattering;


s: Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,


s: Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,


s: Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,


s: Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,


s: And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,


s: And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,


s: And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,


s: And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,


s: And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,


s: And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;


s: And so never ending, but always descending,


s: Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending


s: All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,--


s: And this way the water comes down at Lodore.


s: The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay,


s: And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide,


s: The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,


s: Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,


s: The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone


s: Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,


s: Made lures with the lights of streaming stone


s: In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,


s: Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.


s: Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main.


s: The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,


s: And the lordly main from beyond the plain


s: Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes;


s: Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;


s: My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,


s: Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.


s: Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds through the glen,


s: Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,


s: Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear;


s: I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair.


s: How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighboring hills,


s: Far marked with the courses of clear-winding rill;


s: There daily I wander as noon rises high,


s: My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.


s: How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,


s: Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;


s: There oft as mild evening weeps over the lea,


s: The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.


s: Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,


s: And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;


s: How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,


s: As, gathering sweet flowerets, she stems thy clear wave.


s: Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes;


s: Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays;


s: My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,


s: Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.


s: Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.


s: We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn.


s: Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,


s: The rapids are near and the daylight's past.


s: There is not a breath the blue wave to curl,


s: Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,


s: Shall see us float over thy surges soon.


s: Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,


s: Oh, grant us cool heavens and favoring airs.


s: Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven


s: With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven


s: Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs,--


s: Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,


s: When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades


s: Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,


s: That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within


s: Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noonday fire,--


s: Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire,


s: Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves,--


s: Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good;--


s: O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine,


s: While the riotous noonday sun of the June-day long did shine


s: Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine;


s: But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest,


s: And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West,


s: And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem


s: Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream,--


s: Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak,


s: And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know,


s: And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within,


s: Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain,--


s: To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn,


s: Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn,


s: Thus--with your favor--soft, with a reverent hand,


s: (Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land!)


s: Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand


s: By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea.


s: Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering band


s: Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds


s: Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines


s: Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight,


s: Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light.


s: Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea?


s: From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin,


s: Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won


s: God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain


s: And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.


s: As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,


s: Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God:


s: I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies


s: I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God:


s: Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within


s: The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.


s: About and about through the intricate channels that flow


s: That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow


s: The creeks overflow: a thousand rivulets run


s: 'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh-grass stir;


s: Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr;


s: Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run;


s: And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep


s: The forms that swim and the shapes that creep


s: There's not a nook within this solemn Pass


s: Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone,


s: That Life is but a tale of morning grass


s: Withered at eve.  From scenes of art which chase


s: That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes


s: Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass


s: Untouched, unbreathed upon.  Thrice happy quest,


s: That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay,


s: Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest!


s: Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star


s: In his steep course?  So long he seems to pause


s: On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc!


s: Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form,


s: Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,


s: Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,


s: An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,


s: As with a wedge!  But when I look again,


s: It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,


s: O dread and silent Mount!  I gazed upon thee,


s: Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,


s: Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer


s: So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,


s: Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,


s: Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret joy:


s: Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,


s: As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!


s: Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,


s: Voice of sweet song!  Awake, my Heart, awake!


s: Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn.


s: Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the Vale!


s: O, struggling with the darkness all the night,


s: And visited all night by troops of stars,


s: Or when they climb the sky or when they sink:


s: Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn


s: Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise!


s: Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth?


s: Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?


s: Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?


s: And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!


s: Who called you forth from night and utter death,


s: From dark and icy caverns called you forth,


s: Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,


s: For ever shattered and the same for ever?


s: Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,


s: And who commanded (and the silence came),


s: Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?


s: Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow


s: Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,


s: And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!


s: Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven


s: Beneath the keen full moon?  Who bade the sun


s: Clothe you with rainbows?  Who, with living flowers


s: Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?--


s: God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,


s: Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!


s: God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!


s: Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!


s: And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,


s: And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!


s: Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!


s: Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!


s: Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm!


s: Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!


s: Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!


s: Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,


s: Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,


s: Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,


s: Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast--


s: Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou


s: That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low


s: Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears,


s: Rise like a cloud of incense, from the Earth!


s: Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,


s: Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,


s: Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,


s: And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,


s: Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.


s: "O Master, that movest the wind with a finger,


s: Grant that we may run swiftly across the world


s: A noise of men at work came through the clear blue miles,


s: And the little black cities were apparent.


s: "O Master, that knowest the meaning of raindrops,


s: That we may sing Thy goodness to the sun."


s: The far valleys were sprinkled with tiny lights.


s: Thou that knowest the value of kings and birds,


s: Thou hast made us humble, idle, futile peaks.


s: To Brahma, in whose breath all lives and dies;


s: First-born of Asia, whose maternal throes


s: Seem changed now to a million human woes,


s: Holy thou art and still!  Be so, nor sound


s: One sigh of all the mystery in thee found.


s: For in this world too much is overclear,


s: From whose ice altars flow, to fainting sands,


s: Rivers that each libation poured expands.


s: Too much is known, O Ganges-giving sire:


s: Thy people fathom life, and find it dire;


s: Thy people fathom death, and, in it, fire


s: To live again, though in Illusion's sphere,


s: Wherefore continue, still enshrined, thy rites,


s: Though dark Tibet, that dread ascetic, falls,


s: In strange austerity, whose trance appals,--


s: Before thee, and a suppliant on thee calls.


s: Continue still thy silence high and sure,


s: That something beyond fleeting may endure--


s: Of lifted granite round with reachless snows.


s: Ensheath thy swart sublimities, unscaled;


s: Be that alone on earth which has not failed;


s: Be that which never yet has yearned nor ailed,


s: But since primeval Power upreared thy heights


s: Has stood above all deaths and all delights.


s: And though thy loftier brother shall be king,


s: High-priest be thou to Brahma unrevealed,


s: And to the mendicant stars and the moon-nun,


s: Be holy still, till east to west has run,


s: On any shrine is left to tell life's sting.


s: With a sudden brightening they meet the lightning


s: By orange grove and palm-tree, we walked the southern shore,


s: Each day more still and golden than was the day before.


s: That calm and languid sunshine!  How faint it made us grow


s: To look on Hemlock Mountain when the storm hangs low!


s: To see its rocky pastures, its sparse but hardy corn,


s: The mist roll off its forehead before a harvest morn;


s: To hear the pine-trees crashing across its gulfs of snow


s: Upon a roaring midnight when the whirlwinds blow.


s: Tell not of lost Atlantis, or fabled Avalon;


s: The olive, or the vineyard, no winter breathes upon;


s: Away from Hemlock Mountain we could not well forego,


s: For all the summer islands where the gulf tides flow.


s: Till surely upon the appointed mood Intent


s: Where now we move with mortal care Among


s: Wind with the sea, and blood with thought,


s: I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers


s: I bear light shade for the leaves when laid


s: From my wings are shaken the dews that waken


s: When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,


s: Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers


s: In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,


s: Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,


s: Lured by the love of the Genii that move


s: Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,


s: Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,


s: And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,


s: The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,


s: And, when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,


s: With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest,


s: That orbed maiden with white fire laden,


s: Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,


s: And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,


s: May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,


s: When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,


s: Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,


s: I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,


s: The volcanoes are dim, and the Stars reel and swim,


s: From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,


s: The triumphal arch through which I march,


s: When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,


s: The Sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,


s: While the moist Earth was laughing below.


s: I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;


s: For after the rain, when with never a stain


s: And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams


s: Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb


s: By thee shall herb and flower be kissed,


s: And banks are edged with nestling flowers;


s: Glints through the rain in fitful splendor,


s: The little leaves spring forth and tender


s: Their infant hands, yet weak and slender,


s: Heaven's light that breaks on mist of earth!


s: It flowers through showers where, looming hoary,


s: When, glittering in the freshened fields,


s: Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool?


s: While all the flowers and trees do close


s: Cut in these trees their mistress' name:


s: Fair trees! where'er your barks I wound,


s: How could such sweet and wholesome hours


s: Their leaves, that to the stalks are curled,


s: Seem to their staves the ensigns furled.


s: She runs you through, nor asks the word.


s: From sight of revel and sound of strife,


s: Where the bird may sing out his soul ere he die,


s: Nor fears for the night, so he lives his day;


s: Where the high red walls, which are growing gray


s: With their lichen and moss embroideries,


s: Seem sadly and sternly to shut out life,


s: Right to the heart of the old-world flowers--


s: And lupins, and larkspurs, and "London pride";


s: Where the heron is waiting amongst the reeds,


s: Grown tame in the silence that reigns around,


s: But where never the purposeless laughter of men,


s: Married to pleasure, and buried to pain,--


s: With the further hope of a fallen delight,


s: Blithe as the birds and wise as the bees.


s: From sight of revel and sound of strife,--


s: Here have I leisure to breathe and move,


s: To dream my dreams, and to love my love;


s: Through all the wind-blown aisles of May,


s: Brood o'er their beds, a slumbrous gloom.


s: Than world's delight o'erfleets thy sod;


s: A child would watch her fair white rose,


s: Nor thought that gardener, (full of scorns


s: Hath childhood 'twixt the sun and sward;


s: Those trees, nor feel that childish heart


s: In that child's-nest so greenly wrought,


s: In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,


s: At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee,


s: Walled round with rocks as an inland island,


s: A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses


s: The steep square slope of the blossomless bed


s: Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses


s: The fields fall southward, abrupt and broken,


s: To the low last edge of the long lone land.


s: If a step should sound or a word be spoken,


s: Would a ghost not rise at the strange guest's hand?


s: So long have the gray, bare walks lain guestless,


s: Through branches and briers if a man make way,


s: He shall find no life but the sea-wind's, restless


s: The dense, hard passage is blind and stifled


s: That crawls by a track none turn to climb


s: To the strait waste place that the years have rifled


s: Of all but the thorns that are touched not of Time.


s: The thorns he spares when the rose is taken;


s: The rocks are left when he wastes the plain.


s: The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken,


s: Not a flower to be pressed of the foot that falls not;


s: As the heart of a dead man the seed-plots are dry;


s: From the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not,


s: Could she call, there were never a rose to reply.


s: Over the meadows that blossom and wither


s: Rings but the note of a sea-bird's song;


s: The sun burns sere and the rain dishevels


s: One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath.


s: In a round where life seems barren as death.


s: Here there was laughing of old, there was weeping,


s: Whose eyes went seaward a hundred sleeping


s: Heart handfast in heart as they stood, "Look thither,"


s: Did he, whisper?  "Look forth from the flowers to the sea;


s: For the foam-flowers endure when the rose-blossoms wither,


s: And men that love lightly may die--but we?"


s: And the same wind sang and the same waves whitened,


s: And or ever the garden's last petals were shed,


s: In the lips that had whispered, the eyes that had lightened,


s: Or they loved their life through, and then went whither?


s: And were one to the end--but what end who knows?


s: Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither,


s: As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose.


s: Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them?


s: They are loveless now as the grass above them


s: Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the sea.


s: Not a breath of the time that has been hovers


s: In the air now soft with a summer to be.


s: Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter


s: Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep,


s: When, as they that are free now of weeping and laughter,


s: Here change may come not till all change end.


s: From the graves they have made they shall rise up never,


s: Who have left naught living to ravage and rend.


s: Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing,


s: While the sun and the rain live, these shall be;


s: Till a last wind's breath, upon all these blowing,


s: Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,


s: Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,


s: Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble


s: The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink;


s: Here now in his triumph where all things falter,


s: Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,


s: As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,


s: O the green things growing, the green things growing,


s: The faint sweet smell of the green things growing!


s: I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve,


s: Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing.


s: O the fluttering and the pattering of those green things growing!


s: In the wonderful white of the weird moonlight


s: Or the dim dreamy dawn when the cocks are crowing.


s: I love, I love them so--my green things growing!


s: And I think that they love me, without false showing;


s: For by many a tender touch, they comfort me so much,


s: With the soft mute comfort of green things growing.


s: And in the rich store of their blossoms glowing


s: Ten for one I take they're on me bestowing:


s: Oh, I should like to see, if God's will it may be,


s: Many, many a summer of my green things growing!


s: But if I must be gathered for the angel's sowing,


s: Sleep out of sight awhile, like the green things growing,


s: Though dust to dust return, I think I'll scarcely mourn,


s: If I may change into green things growing.


s: With ten thousand flowers about them they came trooping


s: Spare full well, in language quaint and olden


s: When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,


s: Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.


s: Stars they are, wherein we read our history,


s: Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,


s: Like the burning stars, which they beheld.


s: Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,


s: But not less in the bright flowerets under us


s: In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.


s: Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.


s: Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,


s: Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,


s: Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,


s: Large desires, with most uncertain issues,


s: These in flowers and men are more than seeming;


s: Workings are they of the self-same powers


s: Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born;


s: Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing,


s: But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing,


s: Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,


s: Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink;


s: On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;


s: In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers,


s: Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;


s: In all places, then, and in all seasons,


s: Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,


s: Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,


s: And with childlike, credulous affection,


s: And the daisy's cheek is tipped with a blush,


s: Brave flowers--that I could gallant it like you,


s: You come abroad, and make a harmless show,


s: For your embroidered garments are from earth.


s: You do obey your months and times, but I


s: My fate would know no Winter, never die,


s: And smile, and look as cheerfully as you!


s: O teach me to see Death and not to fear,


s: You fragrant flowers! then teach me, that my breath


s: Like yours may sweeten and perfume my death.


s: That the spring days soon will reach us,


s: And flowers as bright as glittering gems


s: Well call the rose the queen of flowers,


s: There is a Flower, the lesser Celandine,


s: That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain;


s: And, the first moment that the sun may shine,


s: Bright as the sun himself, 'tis out again!


s: When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm,


s: Or blasts the green field and the trees distressed,


s: Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm,


s: In close self-shelter, like a thing at rest.


s: But lately, one rough day, this Flower I passed


s: And recognized it, though an altered form,


s: Now standing forth an offering to the blast,


s: I stopped, and said with inly-muttered voice,


s: "It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:


s: This neither is its courage, nor its choice,


s: "The sunshine may not cheer it, nor the dew;


s: Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue."


s: And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was gray.


s: To be a Prodigal's Favorite--then, worse truth,


s: O Man, that from thy fair and shining youth


s: Age might but take the things Youth needed not!


s: I know a place where the sun is like gold,


s: And the cherry blossoms burst with snow,


s: And down underneath is the loveliest nook,


s: One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith,


s: If you search, you will find where they grow.


s: But you must have hope, and you must have faith,


s: If you work, if you wait, you will find the place


s: Even as my youth sings through my years.


s: That floats on high o'er vales and hills,


s: High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield;


s: Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid


s: Who long with wants and woes has striven,


s: Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven,


s: Even thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,


s: Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight


s: While moons and stars their courses run,


s: Over the shoulders and slopes of the dune


s: I saw the white daisies go down to the sea,


s: A host in the sunshine, an army in June,


s: The people God sends us to set our heart free.


s: The bobolinks rallied them up from the dell,


s: The orioles whistled them out of the wood;


s: And all of their saying was, "Earth, it is well!"


s: And all of their dancing was, "Life, thou art good!"


s: Loose types of things through all degrees,


s: Self-poised in air, thou seem'st to rest;--


s: Bright Flower! for by that name at last,


s: Sets you more distant than the morning-star.


s: Between us lies impassable year on year.


s: I touch you not; and though ye blossom here,


s: Ye there are anchored, while Time's stream


s: Dead and sweet, come back through dream,


s: O mine, and not the year's your stolen Spring!


s: Hide your sweet selves!  I cannot bear it.


s: With your young laughter and endearment,


s: Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,


s: Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,


s: Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,


s: High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they


s: May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me


s: Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.


s: Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow


s: Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,


s: Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;


s: 'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now


s: To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,


s: Are in the heart, and heed not space or time:


s: Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee


s: Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment


s: His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first


s: From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.


s: Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,


s: Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,


s: The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,


s: Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,


s: Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.


s: My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee;


s: The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,


s: Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,


s: With news from heaven, which he could bring


s: When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.


s: When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!


s: Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam


s: Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,


s: And with a child's undoubting wisdom look


s: On all these living pages of God's book.


s: Lisped happy truths, and men were young,


s: Hummed through the shining fields, scarce bent


s: Like the first gold in childhood's purse.


s: Of that bright flower the spring loves most,


s: Scant flowers of thought; the Muse would wean


s: They shook their trembling heads and gray


s: O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,


s: When woods are bare and birds are flown,


s: Up the hill-side of this life, as bleak as where ye grow?


s: Tokens to the wintry earth that Beauty liveth still!


s: Yet live low along the ground, beside the grasses meek!


s: Drops be on our cheeks--O world, they are not tears but dew.


s: Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere;


s: Here I come creeping, smiling everywhere;


s: To see me creeping, creeping everywhere.


s: Smit with those charms, that must decay,


s: They died--nor were those flowers more gay,


s: Of right choice food are his meals I ween,


s: The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,


s: And the mouldering dust that years have made


s: Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,


s: How closely he twineth, how tight he clings


s: Whole ages have fled and their works decayed,


s: The brave old plant, in its lonely days,


s: For the stateliest building man can raise


s: In tangled wreaths, in clustered gleaming stars,


s: The golden flower comes shining through the woods


s: Forth go all hearts, all hands, from out the town,


s: This wild, sweet Princess of far Florida--


s: The live-oaks smile to see her lovely face


s: She hides behind the leaves her golden buds


s: She curls a tendril, throws a spray, then flings


s: And, bursting into thousand blossoms, swings


s: The lone pine-barren broods afar and sighs,


s: The myrtle-thickets and ill-tempered thorns


s: As through their leaves they feel the dainty touch


s: Brought in from the far woods with eager haste


s: The rich man's house, alike; the loaded hands


s: Till, gay with flowers, the people come and go,


s: The Southern land, well weary of its green


s: Bestirs itself to greet the lovely flower


s: The pine has tassels, and the orange-trees


s: The spring has come--has come to Florida,


s: Within, without, the strong leaves press,


s: And when the bird's note showers and breaks


s: From hold of earth by mortals; but God's power


s: Can all things do.  'Tis black, but bears a flower


s: Thy every leaf--to vein with faultless art


s: Each petal, taking the boon light and air


s: To bring thy beauty unto perfect flower,


s: Then, like a passing fragrance or a smile,


s: And I, who pass without regret or grief,


s: Have cared the more to make my moment fine,


s: The sun!--why tarry then till comes the night?


s: By scattered rocks and turbid waters shifting,


s: To feverish men thy calm, sweet face uplifting,


s: The delicate thought that cannot find expression,


s: That, like thy petals, trembles in possession,


s: Laughingly calls unto his comrade-neighbor


s: Some sweet home face his foolish thought surprises


s: Some boyish vision of his Eastern village,


s: Where golden harvests followed quiet tillage


s: One moment only, for the pick, uplifting,


s: And on the muddy current slowly drifting


s: For on the turbid current of his passion


s: The sweets of love are mixed with tears.


s: Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young,


s: To speak by tears, before ye have a tongue.


s: Speak, whimpering younglings, and make known


s: That things of greatest, so of meanest worth,


s: Conceived with grief are, and with tears brought forth.


s: Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire!


s: Thee, when young Spring first questioned Winter's sway,


s: And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight,


s: In this low vale, the promise of the year,


s: Serene, thou openest to the nipping gale,


s: So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms


s: While every bleaching breeze that on her blows


s: In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,


s: Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,


s: To please the desert and the sluggish brook.


s: Made the black water with their beauty gay;


s: Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,


s: And court the flower that cheapens his array.


s: This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,


s: Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,


s: Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:


s: Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!


s: The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.


s: A sweeter flower did Nature ne'er put forth,


s: The maidens danced about it morn and noon,


s: And learned bards of it their ditties made;


s: The nimble fairies by the pale-faced moon


s: Watered the root and kissed her pretty shade.


s: But well-a-day!--the gardener careless grew;


s: The maids and fairies both were kept away,


s: Themselves upon the bud and every spray.


s: God shield the stock!  If heaven send no supplies,


s: Those pale pink stars with hearts of gold!


s: On lawns where gleams the shrub's trim bosk,


s: So, while these truths you vaguely guess,


s: Where the great of other days have been.


s: The flowers are low, the weeds are high,


s: With scented flower, and leaf pale green,


s: Blown in the morning, thou shalt fade ere noon.


s: What boots a life which in such haste forsakes thee?


s: Thou'rt wondrous frolic, being to die so soon,


s: And passing proud a little color makes thee.


s: Know then the thing that swells thee is thy bane;


s: For the same beauty cloth, in bloody leaves,


s: The sentence of thy early death contain.


s: Some clown's coarse lungs will poison thy sweet flower,


s: If by the careless plough thou shalt be torn;


s: To murder thee as soon as thou art born--


s: Nay, force thy bud to blow--their tyrant breath


s: Turns noiselessly in memory's wards to let


s: The breath of distant fields upon my brow


s: The sound of wind-borne bells, more sweet and low,


s: When life hung ripening in love's golden grace,


s: A spring goes singing through its reedy grass;


s: Drowned in the sky--O, pass, ye visions, pass!


s: Why hast thou opened that forbidden door,


s: O vanished Joy!  O Love, that art no more,


s: The violet in the wood, that's sweet to-day,


s: And bid the red rose flower, but not too soon.


s: Why bloom not all fair flowers the whole year through?


s: Why not the two, young violet, ripe rose?


s: Why dies one sweetness when another blows?


s: That, being made wise, I may aspire to be


s: Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies.


s: Teach me these things, through whose high knowledge, I,--


s: When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins,


s: And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie


s: In that vast house, common to serfs and thanes,--


s: I shall not die, I shall not utterly die,


s: For beauty born of beauty--that remains.


s: The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,


s: Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.


s: Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;


s: They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread;


s: The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,


s: And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.


s: Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers


s: Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.


s: The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain


s: Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.


s: The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,


s: And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;


s: But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,


s: And the yellow sun-flower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood,


s: And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,


s: The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side.


s: Yet not unmeet it was that one like that young friend of ours,


s: So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.


s: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie,


s: I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;


s: What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!


s: Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,


s: Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble,


s: But when thou'st drunk, and danced, and sung


s: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,


s: And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run


s: From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead:


s: That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead


s: With his delights, for when tired out with fun,


s: He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.


s: On a lone winter evening, when the frost


s: Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills


s: The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,


s: And seems to one in drowsiness half-lost,


s: The Grasshopper's among the grassy hills.


s: Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,


s: Catching your heart up at the feel of June;


s: Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,


s: When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;


s: And you, warm little housekeeper, who class


s: With those who think the candles come too soon,


s: Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune


s: Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;


s: One to the fields, the other to the hearth,


s: Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong


s: At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth


s: To sing in thoughtful ears their natural song--


s: In-doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth.


s: That quivers through thy piercing notes,


s: Then shall she raise her fainting voice,


s: The snail sticks close, nor fears to fall,


s: The frugal snail, with forecast of repose,


s: Carries his house with him where'er he goes;


s: Peeps out,--and if there comes a shower of rain,


s: Touch but a tip of him, a horn,--'tis well,--


s: He's his own landlord, his own tenant; stay


s: Long as he will, he dreads no Quarter Day.


s: Himself he boards and lodges; both invites


s: And feasts himself; sleeps with himself o' nights.


s: He spares the upholsterer trouble to procure


s: And his sole riches.  Whereso'er he roam,--


s: Knock when you will,--he's sure to be at home.


s: Here rest your wings when they are weary;


s: Thou spark of life that wavest wings of gold,


s: Thou songless wanderer mid the songful birds,


s: With Nature's secrets in thy tints unrolled


s: Through gorgeous cipher, past the reach of words,


s: Living his unspoiled days mid flowers and flocks and herds!


s: What secret tie binds thee to other flowers,


s: Still held within the garden's fostering?


s: Will they too soar with the completed hours,


s: Hovering at will o'er their parental bowers?


s: Or is thy luster drawn from heavenly hues,--


s: A sumptuous drifting fragment of the sky,


s: Caught when the sunset its last glance imbues


s: With sudden splendor, and the tree-tops high


s: On thee to float a few short hours, and die?


s: Birds have their nests; they rear their eager young,


s: And flit on errands all the livelong day;


s: Each fieldmouse keeps the homestead whence it sprung;


s: But thou art Nature's freeman,--free to stray


s: The sweetness spiced on every blossomed spray.


s: The garden one wide banquet spreads for thee,


s: O daintiest reveller of the joyous earth!


s: A second draught would drug thee past all mirth.


s: Thou soberest sprite to which the sun gives birth.


s: His emblem of the new career that springs


s: When death's arrest bids all his spirit bow.


s: Symbol of life, me with such faith endow!


s: The darkness throbbing with their golden pomp!


s: And long my dazzled sight did they entrance


s: With the weird chaos of their dizzy dance!


s: Quicker than yellow leaves, when gales despoil,


s: Quivered the brilliance of their mute turmoil,


s: Within whose light was intricately blent


s: As though their scintillant flickerings had met


s: While watching their tumultuous loveliness,


s: What fervor of deep passion strangely thrives


s: In the warm richness of these tropic lives,


s: Whose wings can never tremble but they show


s: These hearts of living fire that beat below!


s: And the red blood gallops through his veins;


s: By some lone fountain fringed with green:


s: Whistlin' the sun to come out o' the cloud,


s: But for all he can whistle so clear an' loud,


s: Slip from in-undher the drippin' leaves,


s: An' low wi' love when he's near the nest,


s: But for all he can flutter the heart in your breast,


s: When one sweet thought is the whole of his life,


s: Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea,


s: Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale,


s: Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt'st the surge,


s: Restless, and sad; as if, in strange accord


s: Of thousands, thou, both sepulchre and pall,


s: Then turn thee, little bird, and take thy flight


s: Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring


s: The Blackbird sings along the sunny breeze


s: His ancient song of leaves, and summer boon;


s: Rich breath of hayfields streams through whispering trees;


s: And birds of morning trim their bustling wings,


s: And listen fondly--while the Blackbird sings.


s: How soft the lovelight of the West reposes


s: On the trim cottage with its screen of roses,


s: And murmuring mill-race, and the wheel that flings


s: Its bubbling freshness--while the Blackbird sings.


s: Seems as 'twere dreaming in a dozy rest;


s: The scribbled benches underneath the porch


s: But the broad casements of the old Three Kings


s: Blaze like a furnace--while the Blackbird sings.


s: And through gray clouds give laws unto the realm,


s: Curse good and great, but worship their own wit.


s: And roar of fights, and fairs, and junketings,


s: Corn, colts, and curs--the while the Blackbird sings.


s: Before her home, in her accustomed seat,


s: The tidy Grandam spins beneath the shade


s: The dreaming pug, and purring tabby laid;


s: To her low chair a little maiden clings,


s: And spells in silence--while the Blackbird sings.


s: Breathes o'er the hamlet with its gardens green.


s: While the far fields with sunlight overflowed


s: Like golden shores of Fairyland are seen;


s: Again, the sunshine on the shadow springs,


s: And fires the thicket where the Blackbird sings.


s: The woods, the lawn, the peaked Manorhouse,


s: With its peach-covered walls, and rookery loud,


s: The trim, quaint garden alleys, screened with boughs.


s: The lion-headed gates, so grim and proud,


s: Lie in warm sunshine--while the Blackbird sings.


s: The ring of silver voices, and the sheen


s: With her gay court across the garden green;


s: Some laugh, and dance, some whisper their love-dreams;


s: And one calls for a little page; he strings


s: Her lute beside her--while the Blackbird sings.


s: A little while--and lo! the charm is heard,


s: A youth, whose life has been all Summer, steals


s: Forth from the noisy guests around the board,


s: Creeps by her softly; at her footstool kneels;


s: And, when she pauses, murmurs tender things


s: Into her fond ear--while the Blackbird sings.


s: The smoke-wreaths from the chimneys curl up higher,


s: Upon the light; the breeze begins to tire;


s: The ancient clock from out the valley swings;


s: The Grandam nods--and still the Blackbird sings.


s: Far shouts and laughter from the farmstead peal,


s: Where the great stack is piling in the sun;


s: Through narrow gates o'erladen wagons reel,


s: While the inconstant wind bears off, and brings


s: The merry tempest--and the Blackbird sings.


s: On the high wold the last look of the sun


s: Burns, like a beacon, over dale and stream;


s: The shouts have ceased, the laughter and the fun;


s: The Grandam sleeps, and peaceful be her dream;


s: The day is dying--still the Blackbird sings.


s: Serene, with long white hair; and in his eye


s: Burns the clear spirit that hath conquered Fate,


s: His heart is thronged with great imaginings,


s: And tender mercies--while the Blackbird sings.


s: Down by the brook he bends his steps, and through


s: From boyhood with him--who, with lifted hands


s: And eyes, seems listening to far welcomings,


s: And sweeter music than the Blackbird sings.


s: Two golden stars, like tokens from the Blest,


s: Strike on his dim orbs from the setting sun;


s: His sinking hands seem pointing to the West;


s: He smiles as though he said--"Thy will be done":


s: His eyes, they see not those illuminings;


s: His ears, they hear not what the Blackbird sings.


s: And the blackbird plays but a box-wood flute,


s: An' sparrows, clust'ren roun' the bough,


s: Vrom new-pleshed hedge or new-velled copse,


s: Below the white-barked woak-trees' heads;


s: But there's noo time, the whole day long,


s: O' grass-stalks in the high bough's sheade;


s: An' zoo there's noo pleace lik' the drong,


s: White are his shoulders and white his crest.


s: Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings,


s: Broods in the grass while her husband sings:


s: When you can pipe that merry old strain,


s: A flock of merry singing-birds were sporting in the grove;


s: Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love:


s: There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,--


s: A livelier set was never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle,--


s: Crying, "Phew, shew, Waldolincon, see, see, Bobolincon,


s: Down among the tickletops, hiding in the buttercups!


s: I know a saucy chap, I see his shining cap


s: Bobbing in the clover there--see, see, see!"


s: Up flies Bobolincon, perching on an apple-tree,


s: Startled by his rival's song, quickened by his raillery,


s: Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curveting in the air,


s: And merrily he turns about, and warns him to beware!


s: "'Tis you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O!


s: But wait a week, till flowers are cheery,--wait a week, and,


s: Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!"


s: Every one's a funny fellow; every one's a little mellow;


s: Follow, follow, follow, follow, o'er the hill and in the hollow!


s: Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly;


s: With a "Phew, shew, Wadolincon! listen to me, Bobolincon!--


s: Happy's the wooing that's speedily doing, that's speedily doing,


s: That's merry and over with the bloom of the clover!


s: Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow, follow me!"


s: Down I fling Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth,--


s: What are all their songs of birds worth?


s: Hark! are there nine birds or ninety and nine?


s: Like nectar from Hebe's Olympian bottle,


s: The laughter of tune from a rapturous throttle!


s: All one, sir, both this bird and that bird,


s: The whole flight are all the same catbird!


s: The whole visible and invisible choir you see


s: From vocal pipe, or evermore shall rise,


s: From the leaping might of the fiery light


s: The warm light floods the length and breadth


s: Throbbing with heat and the nameless thrill


s: But thou, O crane, save for thy sovereign cry,


s: And swing along thy mateless, tireless course


s: The school-boy, wandering through the wood


s: Starts, the new voice of Spring to hear,


s: When days grow short and nights grow cold,


s: Thou standest by the margin of the pool,


s: And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school


s: God has appointed thee the Fish thy prey;


s: And his unthinking course by thee to weigh.


s: There need not schools, nor the Professor's chair,


s: Though these be good, true wisdom to impart;


s: He, who has not enough for these to spare


s: Of time, or gold, may yet amend his heart,


s: And teach his soul, by brooks and rivers fair:


s: Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed


s: And flowers and birds once more to greet,


s: While birds, and butterflies, and flowers


s: Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm,


s: Waking renewed on thy prodigious pinions,


s: (Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st,


s: And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)


s: Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,


s: As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,


s: (Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast.)


s: The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun,


s: Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)


s: To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,


s: Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails,


s: That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,


s: In them, in thy experiences, hadst thou my soul,


s: There's magic in that small bird's note--


s: The leaves dance round her with delight,


s: The stream laughs out beneath her feet--


s: Silence instead of thy sweet song, my bird,


s: Which through the darkness of my winter days


s: Warbling of summer sunshine still was heard;


s: Mute is thy song, and vacant is thy place.


s: The spring comes back again, the fields rejoice,


s: Carols of gladness ring from every tree;


s: But I shall hear thy wild triumphant voice


s: No more: my summer song has died with thee.


s: What didst thou sing of, O my summer bird?


s: The broad, bright, brimming river, whose swift sweep


s: And whirling eddies by the home are heard,


s: Rushing, resistless, to the calling deep.


s: What didst thou sing of, thou melodious sprite?


s: Pine forests, with smooth russet carpets spread,


s: Where e'en at noonday dimly falls the light,


s: Through gloomy blue-green branches overhead.


s: What didst thou sing of, O thou jubilant soul?


s: Ever-fresh flowers and never-leafless trees,


s: Of the soft swaying, orange scented breeze.


s: What didst thou sing of, thou embodied glee?


s: The wide wild marshes with their clashing reeds


s: And topaz-tinted channels, where the sea


s: Daily its tides of briny freshness leads.


s: What didst thou sing of, O thou winged voice?


s: Dark, bronze-leaved oaks, with silver mosses crowned,


s: Where thy free kindred live, love, and rejoice,


s: With wreaths of golden jasmine curtained round.


s: These didst thou sing of, spirit of delight!


s: From thy own radiant sky, thou quivering spark!


s: These thy sweet southern dreams of warmth and light,


s: Through the grim northern winter drear and dark.


s: These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce;


s: Ruthless beasts they will not cheer thee:


s: Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!


s: Still, after many years, in distant lands,


s: Still nourishing in thy bewildered brain


s: That wild, unquenched, deep-sunken, old-world pain--


s: Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,


s: The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?


s: Once more, and once more seem to make resound


s: Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?


s: How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves!


s: And the waveless stream has a murmuring whisper


s: Not a breath, not a sigh, save the slow stream's whisper:


s: That leads a host of the Crescent warriors


s: A long, strange cry that thrills through the glade:--


s: The gray-green glooms of the elm are stirring,


s: Last heard, white music, under the olives


s: Thy Thracian song is the old new wonder,


s: Dear chorister, who from those shadows sends,


s: Ere that the blushing morn dare show her light,


s: Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends,


s: Become all ear, stars stay to hear thy plight:


s: If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends,


s: Who ne'er, not in a dream, did taste delight,


s: May thee importune who like care pretends,


s: And seems to joy in woe, in woe's despite;


s: Tell me (so may thou fortune milder try,


s: And long, long sing) for what thou thus complains,


s: Since, winter gone, the sun in dappled sky


s: Now smiles on meadows, mountains, woods, and plains?


s: The bird, as if my questions did her move,


s: With trembling wings sobbed forth, I love!  I love!"


s: Through yon wild thicket next the plain,


s: Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,


s: Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill,


s: While the jolly hours lead on propitious May.


s: Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day,


s: First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,


s: Portend success in love.  O, if Jove's will


s: Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,


s: Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate


s: Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh;


s: As thou from year to year hast sung too late


s: Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate,


s: Both them I serve, and of their train am I.


s: The Nightingale, as soon as April bringeth


s: While late-bare Earth, proud of new clothing, springeth,


s: Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making;


s: For Tereus' force on her chaste will prevailing.


s: That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness!


s: Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.


s: Alas! she hath no other cause of anguish


s: But Tereus' love, on her by strong hand wroken;


s: Wherein she suffering, all her spirits languish,


s: Full womanlike, complains her will was broken,


s: Since wanting is more woe than too much having.


s: My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains


s: My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,


s: Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains


s: One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:


s: That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,


s: Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,


s: Singest of summer in full-throated ease.


s: O for a draught of vintage, that hath been


s: Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,


s: Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!


s: Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,


s: With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,


s: That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,


s: And with thee fade away into the forest dim:


s: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget


s: What thou among the leaves hast never known,


s: Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;


s: Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,


s: Where youth grows pale, and specter-thin, and dies;


s: Where but to think is to be full of sorrow


s: Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,


s: Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.


s: And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,


s: Clustered around by all her starry Fays;


s: Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown


s: Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways


s: I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,


s: Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,


s: But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet


s: The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;


s: White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;


s: Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves;


s: The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,


s: The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.


s: I have been half in love with easeful Death,


s: Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,


s: Now more than ever seems it rich to die,


s: To cease upon the midnight with no pain,


s: While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad


s: Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--


s: Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!


s: The voice I hear this passing night was heard


s: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path


s: Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,


s: Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam


s: Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.


s: To toll me back from thee to my sole self!


s: Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades


s: Past the near meadows, over the still stream,


s: Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep


s: Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?


s: But sweeter to hark, in the twinkling dark,


s: The wood-thrush sings of peace, "Sweet peace,


s: Long blue, from some roof-sheltering grove


s: Ah, nothing, nothing!  Commonest things:


s: From you?  What high thing could there be,


s: How falls it, oriole, thou hast come to fly


s: In tropic splendor through our Northern sky?


s: At some glad moment was it nature's choice


s: To dower a scrap of sunset with a voice?


s: Or did some orange tulip, flaked with black,


s: Yearning toward Heaven until its wish was heard,


s: And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch


s: With plashy pour, that scarce was sound,


s: And followed still the wandering strain,


s: With long-drawn cadence thin and clear,--


s: With greenish gold its vest was fringed,


s: "Dear bird," I said, "what is thy name?"


s: The redstart trilled his twittering horn,


s: Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven,


s: For love, for life, thou know'st not what,--


s: For something still which thou hast not?--


s: Of mild bright light that gild the trees.


s: Though heard not by the hurrying throng,


s: Bathed in my Saviour's blood, like thee;


s: The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.


s: The wild waves reach their hands for it,


s: The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,


s: Staunch friends are we, well tried and strong,


s: His white wing from the blue waves under,


s: He thought it a strange, mournful thing.


s: I have walked through wildernesses dreary


s: There is madness about thee, and joy divine


s: Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest.


s: With a soul as strong as a mountain river


s: Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver,


s: Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;


s: But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,


s: As full of gladness and as free of heaven,


s: I, with my fate contented, will plod on,


s: And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done.


s: Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?


s: Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye


s: Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?


s: Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,


s: Those quivering wings composed, that music still!


s: To the last point of vision, and beyond,


s: Mount, daring warbler!--that love-prompted strain


s: --'Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond--


s: Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain:


s: Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing


s: Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;


s: Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood


s: Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam--


s: True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!


s: Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea!


s: Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.


s: Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.


s: O'er the red streamer that heralds the day,


s: Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!


s: How the blithe Lark runs up the golden stair


s: That leans through cloudy gates from Heaven to Earth,


s: Fills it with jubilant sweet songs of mirth;


s: What matter if the days be dark and frore,


s: And singing in the light that floods him o'er


s: And now he dives into a rainbow's rivers,


s: In streams of gold and purple he is drowned,


s: Shrilly the arrows of his song he shivers,


s: As though the stormy drops were turned to sound;


s: Let every wind be hushed, that I may hear


s: The wondrous things he tells the World below,


s: Things that we dream of he is watching near,


s: Hopes that we never dreamed he would bestow;


s: And through that glory sees new worlds foreshown,


s: And hears high songs, and triumphs yet to come;


s: What if his hair be gray, his eyes be dim,


s: If wealth forsake him, and if friends be cold,


s: Wonder unbars her thousand gates to him,


s: Truth never fails, nor Beauty waxes old;


s: Blest is the man who with the sound of song


s: Can charm away the heartache, and forget


s: The frost of Penury, and the stings of Wrong,


s: Singing thou scalest Heaven upon thy wings,


s: Thou liftest a glad heart into the skies;


s: He maketh his own sunrise, while he sings,


s: In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.


s: And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.


s: Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.


s: Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.


s: Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.


s: The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.


s: As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.


s: To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:


s: With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:


s: Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:


s: Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves:


s: Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.


s: That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.


s: A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.


s: What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?


s: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.


s: Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?


s: Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.


s: I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.


s: Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!


s: The world should listen then, as I am listening now.


s: The sails are scattered abroad like weeds;


s: The strong masts shake like quivering reeds;


s: The hull, which all earthly strength disdains,--


s: They strain and they crack; and hearts like stone


s: Their natural, hard, proud strength disown.


s: From the base of the wave to the billow's crown,


s: And amidst the flashing and feathery foam


s: For her who lives on the wide, wide sea,


s: To warm her young, and to teach them to spring


s: At once o'er the waves on their stormy wing!


s: Where the whale and the shark and the swordfish sleep,--


s: Outflying the blast and the driving rain,


s: For the mariner curseth the warning bird


s: Which bringeth him news of the storm unheard!


s: Ah! thus does the prophet, of good or ill,


s: Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still;


s: Yet he ne'er falter,--so, petrel, spring


s: Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing!


s: The banks with speedwell flowers are gay,


s: Thou too hast traveled, little fluttering thing,--


s: Hast seen the world, and now thy weary wing


s: But much, my little bird, could'st thou but tell,


s: I'd give to know why here thou lik'st so well


s: For thou hast passed fair places in thy flight;


s: A world lay all beneath thee where to light;


s: Of all the varied scenes that met thine eye,


s: Of all the spots for building 'neath the sky,


s: Did fortune try thee?--was thy little purse


s: Perchance run low, and thou, afraid of worse,


s: Ah, no! thou need'st not gold, thou happy one!


s: Thou know'st it not.  Of all God's creatures, man


s: What was it, then?--some mystic turn of thought,


s: Caught under German eaves, and hither brought,


s: For the world's loveliness, till thou art grown


s: A sober thing that dost but mope and moan,


s: Nay, if thy mind be sound, I need not ask,


s: Since here I see thee working at thy task


s: A well-laid scheme doth that small head contain,


s: At which thou work'st, brave bird, with might and main,


s: In truth, I rather take it thou hast got


s: By instinct wise much sense about thy lot,


s: Thy home, so thou remain'st alive, and free


s: God speed thee, pretty  bird!  May thy small nest


s: With little ones all in good time be blest.


s: For well thou managest that life of thine,


s: While I--oh, ask not what I do with mine!


s: At night the swallows told home-lore to me,


s: Was all the voice; and yet its accents had


s: Quaint legends of the fireside and the shore,


s: And tones of those whose tasks of love are o'er,


s: And wondrous lyrics, felt but never sung,


s: And histories, whose perfumes long have clung


s: I heard the dream of lovers, as they found


s: And fear and pain and long suspense were drowned


s: And childhood's angels, singing as they flew,


s: And sad, weird voices in the autumn gale,


s: And sighs suppressed and converse soft and low


s: And what is uttered when the stricken know


s: And steps of those who, in the Sabbath light,


s: And hot lips pressing, through the long, dark night,


s: And fervent greetings of old friends, whose path


s: But to each other brought life's aftermath,


s: The music of the seasons touched the strain,


s: The orchard's bounty and the yellow grain,


s: And secrets of the soul that doubts and yearns


s: Till, meeting Christ with raptured eye, discerns


s: So, thinking of the Master and his tears,


s: I sank in arms that folded me from fears,


s: How can thine heart be full of the spring?


s: What hast thou found in the spring to follow?


s: What hast thou found in thine heart to sing?


s: What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?


s: O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow,


s: Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south,


s: The soft south whither thine heart is set?


s: Shall not the grief of the old time follow?


s: Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth?


s: Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow,


s: Thy way is long to the sun and the south;


s: Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow,


s: All spring through till the spring be done,


s: Clothed with the light of the night on the dew,


s: Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow,


s: Take flight and follow and find the sun.


s: Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow,


s: Though all things feast in the spring's guest-chamber,


s: How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet?


s: For where thou fliest I shall not follow,


s: Hast thou the heart? is it all passed over?


s: And fair the feet of thy lover the spring:


s: But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover?


s: But thou wouldst tarry or I would follow


s: O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow,


s: But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollow


s: The small slain body, the flower-like face,


s: The hands that cling and the feet that follow,


s: The voice of the child's blood crying yet,


s: Who hath remembered me? who hath forgotten?


s: Light again, leaf again, life again, love again,"


s: "New, new, new, new!"  Is it then so new


s: "Love again, song again, nest again, young again,"


s: And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend,


s: "Here again, here, here, here, happy year!"


s: As from a fountain, sings in yonder bush


s: With swifter scintillations fling the spark


s: Of mist and sunshine mingled, moves the strain


s: In flame or torrent sweep through Life along,


s: Oh, hark to the brown thrush! hear how he sings!


s: How he pours the dear pain of his gladness!


s: What a gush! and from out what golden springs!


s: And golden the buttercup blooms by the way,


s: While the melody rained from yonder spray


s: How glisten the eyes of the happy leaves!


s: Rosy Heaven his lips to flowered earth gives,


s: Pour, pour of the wine of thy heart, O Nature!


s: By the brimming soul of every creature!--


s: Tongues, tongues for my joy, for my joy! more tongues!--


s: To the sky, and to all earth's blooms and songs!


s: Though cherries ripe are sweet, no doubt,


s: With music's soul, all praise and prayer?


s: His minstrel thou, whose brown wings fly


s: Spring's at the prime, the world's in chime,


s: Blow, she is here, and the world all dear,


s: Old sorrow estranged, enriched, sea-changed,


s: He holds unshared the silence of the sky.


s: Far down his bleak, relentless eyes descry


s: The eagle's empire and the falcon's home--


s: Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh


s: Where cold sierras gleam like scattered foam.


s: And least of all he holds the human swarm--


s: To make their dream and its fulfillment one


s: When, poised above the caldrons of the storm,


s: Their hearts, contemptuous of death, shall dare


s: His roads between the thunder and the sun.


s: I watched that moving zigzag of spread wings


s: Above all lands bound by the curling foam;


s: In misty lens, wild moors and trackless sky


s: They know the tundra of Siberian coasts.


s: They know the clouds and night and starry hosts


s: Dark flying rune against the western glow--


s: It tells the sweep and loneliness of things,


s: While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,


s: Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue


s: Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,


s: Or where the rocking billows rise and sink


s: Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,--


s: At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,


s: Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,


s: Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,


s: And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,


s: Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart


s: Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,


s: Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,


s: In the long way that I must tread alone,


s: And faint and far, with sweet elusive flow,


s: Straight with old Omar in the almond grove


s: From whitening boughs I breathe the odors rare


s: And hear the princess mourning for her love


s: New madrigals in each soft pulsing throat--


s: New life upleaping to the brooding air--


s: Still the heart answers to that questing note,


s: Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing,


s: And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations, Fitful,


s: (Ever the heroes on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing,


s: Ever the stock preserved and never lost, though rare, enough for


s: Flaunt out, O sea, your separate flags of nations!


s: Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals!


s: And all that went down doing their duty,


s: I will go back to the great sweet mother,--


s: I will go down to her, I and none other,


s: Close with her, kiss her, and mix her with me;


s: Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast;


s: Born without sister, born without brother,


s: Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain,


s: Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,


s: Find me one grave of thy thousand graves,


s: Those pure cold populous graves of thine,


s: Wrought without hand in a world without stain.


s: I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships,


s: Change as the winds change, veer in the tide;


s: My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips,


s: I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside;


s: Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were,


s: Filled full with life to the eyes and hair.


s: As a rose is fulfilled to the rose-leaf tips


s: With splendid summer and perfume and pride.


s: Were it once cast off and unwound from me,


s: Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways,


s: Clear of the whole world, hidden at home,


s: Clothed with the green, and crowned with the foam,


s: A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays,


s: A vein in the heart of the streams of the Sea.


s: Thou art subtle and cruel of heart, men say;


s: Thou hast taken, and shalt not render again;


s: Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they.


s: But death is the worst that comes of thee;


s: Thou art fed with our dead, O Mother, O Sea,


s: But when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when


s: Having given us love, hast thou taken away?


s: Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart.


s: The hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover,


s: But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth;


s: Thou art strong for death and fruitful of birth;


s: Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover;


s: From the first thou wert; in the end thou art.


s: There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,


s: I love not Man the less, but Nature more,


s: From these our interviews, in which I steal


s: What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal.


s: Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!


s: Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;


s: Man marks the earth with ruin, his control


s: Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain


s: The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain


s: When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,


s: He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,


s: Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.


s: His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields


s: Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise


s: And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields


s: For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,


s: Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,


s: And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray


s: And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies


s: His petty hope in some near port or bay,


s: And dashest him again to earth:--there let him lay.


s: The armaments which thunderstrike the walls


s: Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake


s: The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make


s: These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,


s: They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar


s: Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.


s: Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee;--


s: Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?


s: Thy waters washed them power while they were free,


s: And many a tyrant since; their shores obey


s: The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay


s: Has dried up realms to deserts:--not so thou;


s: Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play,


s: Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow;


s: Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.


s: Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form


s: Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,


s: Calm or convulsed,--in breeze, or gale, or storm,


s: Dark-heaving;--boundless, endless, and sublime,--


s: Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime


s: The monsters of the deep are made; each zone


s: Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.


s: And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy


s: Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be


s: Borne, like thy bubbles, onward.  From a boy


s: I wantoned with thy breakers,--they to me


s: Were a delight; and if the freshening sea


s: Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear;


s: And trusted to thy billows far and near,


s: And laid my hand upon thy mane,--as I do here.


s: Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell


s: Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell


s: Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.


s: That scarcely will the very smallest shell


s: Be moved for days from whence it sometime fell,


s: When last the winds of heaven were unbound.


s: Oh ye! who have your eye-balls vexed and tired,


s: Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;


s: Oh ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude,


s: Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood


s: Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quired!


s: With ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh,


s: Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed;


s: Some veering up and down, one knew not why.


s: This ship was naught to me, nor I to her,


s: When will she turn, and whither?  She will brook


s: No tarrying; where she comes the winds must stir:


s: On went she,--and due north her journey took.


s: Feed my starved lips with life, with love,


s: Beyond the low marsh-meadows and the beach,


s: Seen through the hoary trunks of windy pines,


s: The long blue level of the ocean shines.


s: The distant surf, with hoarse, complaining speech,


s: Out from its sandy barrier seems to reach;


s: And while the sun behind the woods declines,


s: The moaning sea with sighing boughs combines,


s: And waves and pines make answer, each to each.


s: In life, faith, hope, the same sad undertone


s: Pursues from thought to thought! thou needs must hear


s: An old refrain, too much, too long thine own:


s: The mournful strain was in thyself alone.


s: I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,


s: And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;


s: And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,


s: And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the seagulls crying.


s: I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gipsy life,


s: To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a


s: And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,


s: And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.


s: As I went down by Hastings Mill I lingered in my going


s: (Shipmate, my shipmate!) as in days gone by.


s: As I went down by Hastings Mill I saw a ship there lying,


s: About her tawny yards the little clouds of sunset flying;


s: And half I took her for the ghost of one I used to know


s: (Shipmate, my shipmate!) many years ago.


s: As I went down by Hastings Mill I saw while I stood dreaming


s: The flicker of her riding light along the ripples streaming,


s: As I went down by Hastings Mill I heard a fellow singing,


s: Chipping off the deep sea rust above the tide a-swinging,


s: And well I knew the queer old tune and well the song he sung


s: (Shipmate, my shipmate!) when the world was young.


s: And past the rowdy Union Wharf, and by the still tide sleeping,


s: To a randy dandy deep sea tune my heart in time was keeping,


s: To the thin far sound of a shadowy watch a-hauling,


s: And the voice of one I knew across the high tide calling


s: (Shipmate, my shipmate!) and the late dusk falling!


s: It runneth the earth's wide regions round;


s: It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;


s: With the blue above, and the blue below,


s: If a storm should come and awake the deep,


s: But I loved the great sea more and more.


s: And backwards flew to her billowy breast,


s: Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;


s: And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,


s: And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;


s: I've lived since then, in calm and strife,


s: With wealth to spend and a power to range,


s: But never have sought nor sighed for change;


s: The anchor heaves, the ship swings free,


s: The weather-leech of the topsail shivers,


s: The bowlines strain, and the lee-shrouds slacken,


s: The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers,


s: And the waves with the coming squall-cloud blacken.


s: Is the lighthouse tall on Fire Island Head.


s: There's a shade of doubt on the captain's brow,


s: I stand at the wheel, and with eager eye


s: Till the muttered order of "Full and by!"


s: Is suddenly changed for "Full for stays!"


s: As her broadside fair to the blast she lays;


s: And she swifter springs to the rising seas,


s: As the pilot calls, "Stand by for stays!"


s: It is silence all, as each in his place,


s: With the gathered coil in his hardened hands,


s: By tack and bowline, by sheet and brace,


s: And the light on Fire Island Head draws near,


s: From his post on the bowsprit's heel I hear,


s: With the welcome call of "Ready! About!"


s: And the captain growls, "Down helm! hard down!"


s: As my weight on the whirling spokes I throw,


s: While heaven grows black with the storm-cloud's frown.


s: High o'er the knight-heads flies the spray,


s: As we meet the shock of the plunging sea;


s: And my shoulder stiff to the wheel I lay,


s: As I answer, "Ay, ay, sir! Ha-a-rd a-lee!"


s: With the swerving leap of a startled steed


s: The ship flies fast in the eye of the wind,


s: And the headland white we have left behind.


s: The topsails flutter, the jibs collapse,


s: And belly and tug at the groaning cleats;


s: The spanker slats, and the mainsail flaps;


s: And thunders the order, "Tacks and sheets!"


s: Mid the rattle of blocks and the tramp of the crew,


s: And now is the moment for "Mainsail, haul!"


s: For the first white spray o'er the bulwarks flung.


s: "Let go, and haul!" 'Tis the last command,


s: And the head-sails fill to the blast once more:


s: With its breakers white on the shingly shore.


s: What matters the reef, or the rain, or the squall?


s: The first mate clamors, "Belay, there, all!"


s: And the captain's breath once more comes free.


s: Eight bells have struck, and my watch is below.


s: Stars trembling o'er us and sunset before us,


s: Speak not, ah, breathe not--there's peace on the deep.


s: Come not, pale sorrow, flee till to-morrow;


s: Rest softly falling o'er eyelids that weep;


s: While down the river we float on forever,


s: As the waves cover the depths we glide over,


s: Heaven shine above us, bless all that love us;


s: All whom we love in thy tenderness keep!


s: Go, patter to lubbers and swabs, do ye see,


s: A water-tight boat and good sea-room for me,


s: Though the tempest topgallant-masts smack smooth should smite,


s: Clear the deck, stow the yards, and house everything tight,


s: Avast! nor don't think me a milksop so soft


s: For they say there's a Providence sits up aloft,


s: To keep watch for the life of poor Jack!


s: I heard our good chaplain palaver one day


s: And, my timbers! what lingo he'd coil and belay;


s: Why, 'twas just all as one as High Dutch;


s: For he said how a sparrow can't founder, d'ye see,


s: And a many fine things that proved clearly to me


s: "For," says he, "do you mind me, let storms e'er so oft


s: There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,


s: To keep watch for the life of poor Jack!"


s: I said to our Poll,--for, d'ye see, she would cry,


s: "What argufies sniveling and piping your eye?


s: Can't you see, the world's wide, and there's room for us all,


s: And if to old Davy I should go, friend Poll,


s: What then?  All's a hazard: come, don't be so soft:


s: For, d'ye see, there's a cherub sits smiling aloft,


s: D'ye mind me, a sailor should be every inch


s: And with her brave the world, without offering to flinch


s: As for me, in all weathers, all times, sides, and ends,


s: Naught's a trouble from duty that springs,


s: For my heart is my Poll's, and my rhino's my friend's,


s: Even when my time comes, ne'er believe me so soft


s: For the same little cherub that sits up aloft


s: Will look out a good berth for poor Jack!


s: And such the trust that still were mine,


s: Though stormy winds swept o'er the brine,


s: Roused me from sleep to wreck and death.


s: Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,


s: Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West,


s: That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding,


s: Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?


s: Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales oppressed,


s: When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling,


s: Wilt thou glide on the blue Pacific, or rest


s: In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling.


s: I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest,


s: Already arrived, am inhaling the odorous air:


s: I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest,


s: And anchor queen of the strange shipping there,


s: Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare:


s: Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capped grandest


s: Peak, that is over the feathery palms, more fair


s: Than thou, so upright, so stately and still thou standest.


s: And yet, O splendid ship, unhailed and nameless,


s: I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine


s: That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless,


s: Thy port assured in a happier land than mine.


s: But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine,


s: As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding,


s: From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line


s: In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.


s: Has filled your canvas curves with rose,


s: The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;


s: The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;


s: The wind was a nor'-wester, blowing squally off the sea;


s: And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.


s: They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;


s: But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.


s: We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,


s: And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go about.


s: All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,


s: For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.


s: We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;


s: But every tack we made brought the North Head close aboard;


s: So's we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,


s: The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;


s: The good red fires were burning bright in every 'longshore home;


s: The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;


s: And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.


s: The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;


s: O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,


s: My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair;


s: And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,


s: Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.


s: And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,


s: Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;


s: And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,


s: To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.


s: They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.


s: "All hands to loose topgallant sails," I heard the captain call.


s: She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,


s: And the ship smelt up to windward, just as though she understood.


s: We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.


s: And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,


s: As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;


s: But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,


s: Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.


s: Down around the quay they lie, the ships that sail to sea,


s: On shore the brown-cheeked sailormen they pass the jest with me,


s: But soon their ships will sail away with winds that never tire,


s: The Port o' Heart's Desire, and it's, oh, that port for me,


s: And that's the ship that I love best of all that sail the sea;