Chapter II

If we forget in after years,
My comrade, all the hopes and fears
That hovered all our walks around
When ent'ring on that mystic ground
Of ghostly legends, where one hears
By bandit towers the chase that nears
Thro' cracking woods, the oaths and cheers
Of demon huntsman, horn and hound;
If we forget.

Lenora's lover and her tears,
Fierce Wallenstein, satanic sneers
Of the red devil Goethe bound,--
Why then, forsooth, they soon are found
In burly stoops of German beers,
If we forget!

MORNING AND NIGHT.

FROM "THE TRIUMPH OF MUSIC."

... Fresh from bathing in orient fountains,
In wells of rock water and snow,
Comes the Dawn with her pearl-brimming fingers
O'er the thyme and the pines of yon mountain;
Where she steps young blossoms fresh blow....

And sweet as the star-beams in fountains,
And soft as the fall of the dew,
Wet as the hues of the rain-arch,
To me was the Dawn when on mountains
Pearl-capped o'er the hyaline blue,
Saint-fair and pure thro' the blue,
Her spirit in dimples comes dancing,
In dimples of light and of fire,
Planting her footprints in roses
On the floss of the snow-drifts, while glancing
Large on her brow is her tire,
Gemmed with the morning-star's fire.

But sweet as the incense from altars,
And warm as the light on a cloud,
Sad as the wail of bleak woodlands,
To me was the Night when she falters
In the sorrowful folds of her shroud,
In the far-blowing black of her shroud,

O'er the flower-strewn bier of her lover,
The Day lying faded and fair
In the red-curtained chambers of air.
When disheveled I've seen her uncover
Her gold-girdled raven of hair--
All hooped with the gold of the even--
And for this sad burial prepare,
The spirit of Night in the heaven
To me was most wondrously fair,
So fair that I wished it were given
To die in the rays of her hair,
Die wrapped in her gold-girdled hair.

THE TOLL-MAN'S DAUGHTER.

Once more the June with her great moon
Poured harvest o'er the golden fields;
Once more her days in hot, bright shields
She bore from morn to drooping noon.
A rhymer, sick of work and rhyme,
Disheartened by a poor success,
I sought the woods to loll the time
In one long month of quietness.
It was the time when one will thrill
For indolent fields, serener skies;
For Nature's softening subtleties
Of higher cloud and gullied rill.

When crumpled poppies strew the halls
Of all the East, where mounts the Dawn,
And in the eve the skyey lawn
Gold kingcups heap 'neath Night's gray walls.
The silver peace of distant wolds,
Of far-seen lakes a glimmering dance,
Fresh green of undulating hills,
Old woodlands silent with romance.
Intenser stars, a lazier moon,
The moonlit torrent on the peak,
And at one's side a maiden meek
And lovely as the balmy June.

The toll-gate stood beside the road,
The highway from the city's smoke;
Its long, well white-washed spear-point broke
The clean sky o'er the pike and showed
The draught-horse where his rest should be.
The locusts tall with shade on shade
The trough of water cool beneath,
From heat and toil a Sabbath made.
Beyond were pastures where the kine
Would browse, and where a young bull roared;
And here would pass a peeping hoard
Of duck and brood in waddling line.

A week flew by on wings of ease.
I walked along a rutty lane;
I stopped to list some picker's strain
Sung in a patch of raspberries.
Upon the fence's lanky rails
I leaned to stare into great eyes
Glooming beneath a bonnet white
Bowed 'neath a chin of dimpled prize.
Phoebe, the toll-man's daughter she;
I knew her by a slow, calm smile,
Whose source seemed distant many a mile,
Brimming her eyes' profundity.

Elastic as a filly's tread
Her modest step, and full and warm
The graceful contour of her form
Harmonious swelled from foot to head.
And such a head!--You'd thought that there
The languid night, in frowsy bliss,
Had curled brown rays for her deep hair
And stained them with the starlight's kiss.
A face as beautiful and bright,
As crystal fair as twilight skies,
Lit with the stars of hazel eyes,
And lashed with black of dusky night.

She stood waist-deep amid the briers;
Above in twisted lengths were rolled
The sunset's tangled whorls of gold,
Blown from the West's mist-fueled fires.
A shuddering twilight dashed with gold
Down smouldering hills the fierce day fell,
And bubbling over star on star
The night's blue cisterns 'gan to well,
With the dusk crescent of his wings
A huge crane cleaves the wealthy West,
While up the East a silver breast
Of chastity the full moon brings.

For her, I knew, where'er she trod,
Each dew-drop raised a limpid glass
To flash her beauty from the grass;
That wild flowers bloomed along the sod,
Or, whisp'ring, murmured when she smiled;
The wood-bird hushed to hark her song,
Or, all enamored, from his wild
Before her feet flew flutt'ring long.
The brook droned mystic melodies,
Eddied in laughter when she kissed
With naked feet its amethyst
Of waters stained by blooming trees.

THE BERRIERS.

MORN.

Down silver precipices drawn
The red-wine cataracts of dawn
Pour soundless torrents wide and far,
Deluging each warm, floating star.
A sound of winds and brooks and wings,
Sweet woodland-fluted carolings,
Star radiance dashed on moss and fern,
Wet leaves that quiver, breathe, and burn;
Wet hills, hung heavily with woods,
Dew-drenched and drunken solitudes
Faint-murmuring elfin canticles;
Sound, light, and spicy boisterous smells,
And flowers and buds; tumultuous bees,
Wind-wafts and genii of the trees.
Thro' briers that trammel, one by one,
With swinging pails comes laughing on
A troop of youthful berriers,
Their wet feet glitt'ring where they pass
Thro' dew-drop studded tufts of grass:
And oh! their cheers, their merry cheers,
Wake Echo on her shrubby rock,
Whom dale and mountain answering mock
With rapid fairy horns, as if
Each mossy hill and weedy cliff
Had its imperial Oberon,
Who, seeking his Titania hid
In bloomy coverts him to shun,
In kingly wrath had called and chid.

EVENING.

Cloud-feathers oozing rich with light,
Slow trembling in the locks of Night,
Her dusky waist with sultry gold
Girdled and buckled fold on fold.
High stars; a sound of bleating flocks;
Gray, burly shadows fall'n 'mid rocks,
Like giant curses overthrown
By some Arthurian champion;
Soft-swimming sorceries of mist
Haunting glad glens of amethyst;
Low tinklings in dim clover dells
Of bland-eyed kine with brazen bells;
And where the marsh in reed and grass
Burns angry as a shattered glass.

The flies blur sudden blasts of shine,
Like wasted draughts of amber wine
Spun high by reeling Bacchanals
When Bacchus bredes his curling hair
With vine-leaves, and from ev'ry lair
Voluptuous Maenads lovely calls.
They come, they come, a happy throng,
The berriers with gibe and song;
Deep pails brimmed black to tin-white eaves
With luscious fruit kept cool with leaves
Of aromatic sassafras,
'Twixt which some sparkling berry slips,
Like laughter, from the purple mass,
Wine swollen as Silenus' lips.

HARVESTING.

I.

NOON.

The tanned and sultry noon climbs high
Up gleaming reaches of the sky;
Below the balmy belts of pines
The cliff-lunged river laps and shines;
Adown the aromatic dell
Sifts the warm harvest's musky smell.
And, oh! above one sees and hears
The brawny-throated harvesters;
Their red brows beaded with the heat,
By twos and threes among the wheat
Flash their hot sickles' slenderness
In loops of shine; and sing, and sing,
Like some mad troop of piping Pan,
Along the hills that swoon or ring
With sounds of Ariel airiness
That haunted freckled Caliban:

"O ho! O ho! 'tis noon, I say;
The roses blow.
Away, away, above the hay
The burly bees to the roses gay
Hum love-tunes all the livelong day,
So low! so low!
The roses' Minnesingers they."

II.

TWILIGHT.

Up velvet lawns of lilac skies
The tawny moon begins to rise
Behind low blue-black hills of trees,
As rises from faint Siren seas,
To rock in purple deeps, hip-hid,
A virgin-bosom'd Oceanid.
Gaunt shadows crouch by rock and wood,
Like hairy Satyrs, grim and rude,
Till the white Dryads of the moon
Come noiseless in their silver shoon
To beautify them with their love.
The sweet, sad notes I hear, I hear,
Beyond dim pines and mellow hills,
Of some fair maiden harvester,
The lovely Limnad of the grove
Whose singing charms me while it kills:

"O deep! O deep! the twilight rare
Pales on to sleep;
And fair, so fair! fades the rich air.
The fountain shines in its ferny lair,
Where the cold Nymph sits in her oozy hair
To weep, to weep,
For a mortal youth who is not there."

GOING FOR THE COWS.