Chapter II

See how the glory grows! unrolled,
Expanding length on radiant length
Of cloud-wrought petals.--Vast, a rose
The western heavens of flame unfold,
Where, sparkling thro' the splendor, glows
The evening star, fresh-faced with strength--
A raindrop in its heart of gold.

A WOODLAND GRAVE

White moons may come, white moons may go,
She sleeps where early blossoms blow;
Knows nothing of the leafy June,
That leans above her, night and noon,
Crowned now with sunbeam, now with moon,
Watching her roses grow.

The downy moth at evening comes
And flutters round their honeyed blooms:
Long, languid clouds, like ivory,
That isle the blue lagoons of sky,
Grow red as molten gold and dye
With flame the pine-dark glooms.

Dew, dripping from wet fern and leaf;
The wind, that shakes the blossom's sheaf;
The slender sound of water lone,
That makes a harp-string of some stone,
And now a wood-bird's twilight moan,
Seem whisp'rings there of grief.

Her garden, where the lilacs grew,
Where, on old walls, old roses blew,
Head-heavy with their mellow musk,
Where, when the beetle's drone was husk,
She lingered in the dying dusk,
No more shall know that knew.

Her orchard,--where the Spring and she
Stood listening to each bird and bee,--
That, from its fragrant firmament,
Snowed blossoms on her as she went,
(A blossom with their blossoms blent)
No more her face shall see.

White moons may come, white moons may go,
She sleeps where early blossoms blow;
Around her headstone many a seed
Shall sow itself; and briar and weed
Shall grow to hide it from men's heed,
And none will care or know.

THE OLD BYWAY

Its rotting fence one scarcely sees
Through sumac and wild blackberries.
Thick elder and the bramble-rose,
Big ox-eyed daisies where the bees
Hang droning in repose.

The little lizards lie all day
Gray on its rocks of lichen-gray;
And there, gay Ariels of the sun,
The butterflies make bright its way,
And paths where chipmunks run.

Its lyric there the redbird lifts,
While, overhead, the swallow drifts
'Neath sun-soaked clouds of palest cream,--
In which the wind makes azure rifts,--
And there the wood-doves dream.

The brown grasshoppers rasp and bound
'Mid weeds and briars that hedge it round;
And in its grass-grown ruts,--where stirs
The harmless snake,--mole-crickets sound;
O'erhead the locust whirs.

At evening, when the sad west turns
To lonely night a cheek that burns,
The tree-toads in the wild-plum sing;
And ghosts of long-dead flowers and ferns
The wind wakes, whispering.

THE WOODPATH

Here Spring her first frail violets blows;
Broadcast her whitest wind-flowers sows
Through starry mosses amber-fair,
And fronded ferns and briar-rose,
Hart's-tongue and maidenhair.

Here fungus life is beautiful;
Slim mushroom and the thick toadstool,--
As various colored as are blooms,--
Dot their damp cones through shadows cool,
And breathe forth rain perfumes.

Here stray the wandering cows to rest;
The calling cat-bird builds its nest
In spicewood bushes dark and deep;
Here raps the woodpecker its best,
And here young rabbits leap.

Beech, oak, and cedar; hickories;
The pawpaw and persimmon trees;
And tangled vines and sumac-brush,
Make dark the daylight, where the bees
Drone, and the wood-springs gush.

Here to pale melancholy moons,
In haunted nights of dreamy Junes,
Wails wildly the weird whippoorwill,
Whose strains, like those the owlet croons,
Wild woods with phantoms fill.

THE SOUND OF THE SAP

When the ice was thick on the flower-beds,
And the sleet was caked on the briar;
When the frost was down in the brown bulb's heads,
And the ways were clogged with mire:

When the snow on syringa and spiræa-tree
Seemed the ghosts of perished flowers;
And the days were sorry as sorry could be,
And Time limped, cursing his fardel of hours:

Heigh-ho! had I not a book and the logs,
That chirped with the sap in the burning?--
Or was it the frogs in the far-off bogs?
Or the bush-sparrow's song at the turning?

And I strolled by ways that the Springtime knows,
In her mossy dells, and her ferny passes;
Where the earth was holy with lily and rose,
And the myriad life of the grasses.

And I spoke with the Spring as a lover, who speaks
To his sweetheart; to whom he has given
A kiss that has kindled the rose of her cheeks,
And her eyes with the laughter of heaven.

The sound of the sap!--What a simple thing!--
But the sound of the sap had the power
To make the song-sparrow come and sing,
And the winter woodlands flower!

THE DRYAD

I have seen her limpid eyes,
Large with gradual laughter, rise
In the wild-rose nettles;
Slowly, like twin flowers, unfold,
Smiling,--when the wind, behold!
Whisked them into petals.

I have seen her hardy cheek,
Like a molten coral, leak
Through the leaves around it
Of thick Chickasaws; but so,
When I made more certain, lo!
A red plum I found it.

I have found her racy lips,
And her roguish finger-tips,
But a haw or berry;
Glimmers of her there and here,
Just, forsooth, enough to cheer,
And to make me merry.

Often from the ferny rocks
Dazzling rimples of her locks
At me she hath shaken;
And I've followed--but in vain!--
They had trickled into rain,
Sunlit, on the braken.

Once her full limbs flashed on me,
Naked, where a royal tree
Checkered mossy places
With soft sunlight and dim shade,--
Such a haunt as myths have made
For the Satyr races.

There, it seemed, hid amorous Pan;
For a sudden pleading ran
Through the thicket, wooing
Me to search and, suddenly,
From the swaying elder-tree,
Flew a wild-dove, cooing.

A DEAD LILY

The South saluted her mouth
Till her breath was sweet with the South.

The North in her ear breathed low,
Till her veins ran crystal and snow.

The West 'neath her eyelids blew,
Till her heart beat honey and dew.

And the East with his magic old
Changed her body to pearl and gold.

And she stood like a beautiful thought
That a godhead of love had wrought....

How strange that the Power begot it
Only to kill it and rot it!

THE DEAD OREAD

Her heart is still and leaps no more
With holy passion when the breeze,
Her whilom playmate, as before,
Comes with the language of the bees,
Sad songs her mountain cedars sing,
And water-music murmuring.

Her calm, white feet,--once fleet and fast
As Daphne's when a god pursued,--
No more will dance like sunlight past
The gold-green vistas of the wood,
Where every quailing floweret
Smiled into life where they were set.

Hers were the limbs of living light,
And breasts of snow, as virginal
As mountain drifts; and throat as white
As foam of mountain waterfall;
And hyacinthine curls, that streamed
Like mountain mists, and gloomed and gleamed.

Her presence breathed such scents as haunt
Deep mountain dells and solitudes,
Aromas wild,--like some wild plant
That fills with sweetness all the woods;--
And comradeship with stars and skies
Shone in the azure of her eyes.

Her grave be by a mossy rock
Upon the top of some high hill,
Removed, remote from men who mock
The myths, the dreams of life they kill;
Where all of love and naught of lust
May guard her solitary dust.

PAX VOBISCUM

I

I know that from thine eyes
The Spring her violets grew;
Those bits of April skies,
On which the green turf lies,
Whereon they blossom blue.

II

I know that Summer wrought
From thy sweet heart that rose,
With such faint fragrance fraught,--
Its pale, poetic thought
Of peace and deep repose.--

III

That Autumn, like some god,
From thy delicious hair,--
Lost sunlight 'neath the sod,--
Shot up this goldenrod
To toss it everywhere.