Chapter IV

Or in the peaceful calm of stormy evens,
When the sick, bloodless West doth winding spread
A sheeted shroud of silver o'er the heavens
And brooches it with one rich star's gold head,
Low lay thee down beside a mountain lake,
Which dimples at the twilight's sigh,
Couched on plush mosses 'neath green bosks that shake
Storm fragrance from on high,--
The cold, pure spice of rain-drenched forests deep,--
And gorge thy grief upon the nightingale,
Who with the hush a war doth keep
That bubbles down the starlit vale
To Silence's rapt ear.

THE PASSING OF THE BEAUTIFUL.

On southern winds shot through with amber light,
Breeding soft balm, and clothed in cloudy white,
The lily-fingered Spring came o'er the hills
Waking the crocus and the daffodils.
O'er the cold earth she breathed a tender sigh,--
The maples sang and flung their banners high,
Their crimson-tasseled pennons, and the elm
Bound his dark brows with a green-crested helm.
Beneath the musky rot of Autumn's leaves,
Under the forest's myriad naked eaves,
Life woke and rose in gold and green and blue,
Robed in the star-light of the twinkling dew.
With timid tread adown the barren wood
Spring held her way, when, lo! before her stood
White-mantled Winter wagging his white head,
Stormy his brow, and stormily he said:--
"Sole lord of terror, and the fiend of storm,
Crowned king of despots, my envermeiled arm
Slew these vast woodlands crimsoning all their bowers!
Thou, Spirit of Beauty, with thy bursting flowers,
Swollen with pride, wouldst thou usurp my throne,
Long planted here deep in the waste's wild moan?
Sworn foe of beauty, with a band of ice
I'll strangle thee tho' thou be welcomer thrice!"
So round her throat a band of blasting frost,
Her sainted throat of snow, he coiled and crossed,
And cast her on the dark, unfeeling mold;
Her tender blossoms, blighted in the fold
Of her warm bosoms, trembling bowed their brows
In holy meekness, or in scattered rows
Huddled about her white and silent feet,
Or on pale lips laid fond last kisses sweet,
And died: lilacs all musky for the May,
And bluer violets, and snow drops lay
Silent and dead, but yet divinely fair,
Like ice gems glist'ning in Spring's lovely hair.
The Beautiful, so innocent, sweet, and pure,
Why must thou perish, and the evil still endure?
Too soon must pass the Beautiful away!
Too long doth Terror hold anarchal sway!
Alas! sad heart, bow not beneath the pain,
Time changeth all, the Beautiful wakes again!
We can not question such; a higher power
Knows best what bud is ripest in its flower;
Silently plucks it at the fittest hour.

A NOVEMBER SKETCH.

The hoar-frost hisses 'neath the feet,
And the worm-fence's straggling length,
Smote by the morning's slanted strength,
Sparkles one rib of virgin sleet.

To withered fields the crisp breeze talks,
And silently and sadly lifts
The bronz'd leaves from the beech and drifts
Them wadded down the woodland walks.

Reluctantly and one by one
The worthless leaves sift slowly down,
And thro' the mournful vistas blown
Drop rustling, and their rest is won.

Where stands the brook beneath its fall,
Thin-scaled with ice the pool is bound,
And on the pebbles scattered 'round
The ooze is frozen; one and all

White as rare crystals shining fair.
There stirs no life: the faded wood
Mourns sighing, and the solitude
Seems shaken with a mighty care.

Decay and silence sadly drape
The vigorous limbs of oldest trees,
The rotting leaves and rocks whose knees
Are shagged with moss, with misty crape.

To sullenness the surly crow
All his derisive feeling yields,
And o'er the barren stubble-fields
Flaps cawless, wrapped in hungry woe.

The eve comes on: the teasel stoops
Its spike-crowned head before the blast;
The tattered leaves drive whirling past
Like skeletons in whistling troops.

The pithy elder copses sigh;
Their broad blue combs with berries weighed,
Like heavy pendulums are swayed
With ev'ry gust that hurries by.

Thro' matted walls of tangled brier
That hedge the lane, the sumachs thrust
Their scarlet torches red as rust,
Burning with flames of stolid fire.

The evening's here--cold, hard, and drear;
The lavish West with bullion bright
Of molten silver walls the night
Far as one star's thin rays appear.

Wedged toward the West's cold luridness
The wild geese fly 'neath roseless domes;
The wild cry of the leader comes
Distant and harsh with loneliness.

The pale West dies, and in its cup
Bubble on bubble pours the night:
The East glows with a mystic light;
The stars are keen; the moon is up.

THE WHITE EVENING.

From gray, bleak hills 'neath steely skies
Thro' beards of ice the forests roar;
Along the river's humming shore
The skimming skater bird-like flies.

On windy meads where wave white breaks,
Where fettered briers' glist'ning hands
Reach to the cold moon's ghastly lands,
Hoots the lorn owl, and crouching quakes.

With frowsy snow blanched is the world;
Stiff sweeps the wind thro' murmuring pines,
Then fiend-like deep-entangled whines
Thro' the dead oak, that vagrant twirled

Phantoms the cliff o'er the wild wold:
Ghost-vested willows rim the stream,
Low hang lank limbs where in a dream
The houseless hare leaps o'er the cold

On snow-tressed crags that twinkling flash,
Like champions mailed for clanking war,
Glares down large Phosphor's quiv'ring star,
Where teeth of foam the fierce seas gnash.

Slim o'er the tree-tops weighed with white
The country church's spire doth swell,
A scintillating icicle,
While fitfully the village light

In sallow stars stabs the gray dark;
Homeward the creaking wagons strain
Thro' knee-deep drifts; the steeple's vane
A flitting ghost whirls in its sark.

Down from the flaky North with clash,
Swathed in his beard of flashing sleet,
With steeds of winds that jangling beat
Life from the world, and roaring dash,--

Loud Winter! ruddy as a rose
Blown by the June's mild, musky lips;
The high moon dims her horn that dips,
And fold on fold roll down the snows.

SUMMER.

I.

Now Lucifer ignites her taper bright
To greet the wild-flowered Dawn,
Who leads the tasseled Summer draped with light
Down heaven's gilded lawn.
Hark to the minstrels of the woods,
Tuning glad harps in haunted solitudes!
List to the rillet's music soft,
The tree's hushed song:
Flushed from her star aloft
Comes blue-eyed Summer stepping meek along.

II.

And as the lusty lover leads her in,
Clad in soft blushes red,
With breezy lips her love he tries to win,
Doth many a tear-drop shed:
While airy sighs, dyed in his heart,
Like Cupid's arrows, flame-tipped o'er her dart,
He bends his yellow head and craves
The timid maid
For one sweet kiss, and laves
Her rose-crowned locks with tears until 'tis paid.

III.

Come to the forest or the musky meadows
Brown with their mellow grain;
Come where the cascades shake green shadows,
Where tawny orchards reign.
Come where fall reapers ply the scythe,
Where golden sheaves are heaped by damsels blithe:
Come to the rock-rough mountain old,
Tree-pierced and wild;
Where freckled flowers paint the wold,
Hail laughing Summer, sunny-haired, blonde child!

IV.

Come where the dragon-flies in coats of blue
Flit o'er the wildwood streams,
And fright the wild bee from the honey-dew
Where if long-sipping dreams.
Come where the touch-me-nots shy peep
Gold-horned and speckled from the cascades steep:
Come where the daisies by the rustic bridge
Display their eyes,
Or where the lilied sedge
From emerald forest-pools, lance-like, thick rise.

V.

Come where the wild deer feed within the brake
As red as oak and strong;
Come where romantic echoes wildly wake
Old hills to mystic song.
Come to the vine-hung woodlands hoary,
Come to the realms of hunting song and story;
But come when Summer decks the land
With garb of gold,
With colors myriad as the sand--
A birth-fair child, tho' thousand summers old.

VI.

Come where the trees extend their shining arms
Unto the star-sown skies;
Displaying wrinkled age in limb-gnarled charms
When Night, moon-eyed, brown lies
Upon their bending lances seen
With fluttered pennons in the moon's broad sheen.
Come where the pearly dew is spread
Upon the rose;
Come where the fire-flies wed
The drowsy Night flame-stained with sudden glows.