Chapter III

And then she called me: in my ears
Her voice was music; and it led
My sad soul back with all its fears;
Recalled my spirit that had fled.--
And in my dream it seemed she said,
"Our hearts keep true through all the years;"
And on my face I felt the tears,
The blinding tears of her long dead.

DEFICIENCY

Ah, God! were I away, away
By woodland-belted hills!
There might be more in this bright day
Than my poor spirit thrills.

The elder coppice, banks of blooms;
The spicewood brush; the field
Of tumbled clover, and perfumes
Hot, weedy pastures yield.

The old rail-fence, whose angles hold
Bright briar and sassafras;
Sweet, priceless wildflowers, blue and gold,
Starred through the moss and grass.

The ragged path that winds unto
Lone, bird-melodious nooks,
Through brambles to the shade and dew
Of rocks and woody brooks.

To see the minnows flash and gleam
Like sparkling prisms; all
Shoot in gray schools adown the stream
Let but a dead leaf fall!

To feel the buoyance and delight
Of floating, feathered seeds!
Capricious wisps of wandering white
Born of silk-bearing weeds.

Ah, God! were I away, away
Among wild woods and birds,
There were more soul in this bright day
Than one could bless with words.

MIDSUMMER

The red blood stings through her cheeks and clings
In their tan with a fever that lightens;
And the clearness of heaven-born mountain springs
In her dark eyes dusks and brightens:
Her limbs are the limbs of an Atalanta who swings
With the youths in the sinewy games,
When the hot wind sings through the hair it flings,
And the circus roars hoarse with their names,
As they fly to the goal that flames.

Her voice is as deep as the waters that sweep
Through the musical reeds of a river;
A voice as of reapers who bind and reap,
With the ring of curved scythes that quiver:
A voice, singing ripe the orchards that heap
With crimson and gold the ground;
That whispers like sleep, till the briars weep
Their berries, all ruby round,
And vineyards are purple-crowned.

Right sweet is the beat of her glowing feet,
And her smile, as Heaven's, is gracious;
The creating might of her hands of heat
As a god's or a goddess's spacious:
The odorous blood in her heart a-beat
Is rich with a perishless fire;
And her bosom, most sweet, is the ardent seat
Of a mother who never will tire,
While the world has a breath to suspire.

Wherever she fares her soft voice bears
Fecundity; powers that thicken
The fruits,--as the wind made Thessalian mares
Of old mysteriously quicken:--
The apricots' honey, the milk of the pears,
The wine, great grape-clusters hold,
These, these are her cares, and her wealth she declares
In the corn's long billows of gold,
And flowers that jewel the wold.

So, hail to her lips, and her sun-girt hips,
And the glory she wears in her tresses!
All hail to the balsam that dreams and drips
From her breasts that the light caresses!
Midsummer! whose fair arm lovingly slips
Round the Earth's great waist of green,
From whose mouth's aroma his hot mouth sips
The life that is love unseen,
And the beauty that God may mean.

DIURNAL

I

With molten ruby, clear as wine,
The East's great cup of daybreak brims;
The morning-glories swing and shine;
The night-dews bead their satin rims;
The bees are busy in flower and vine,
And load with gold their limbs.

Sweet Morn, the South
A loyal lover,
Kisses thy mouth,
Thy rosy mouth,
And over and over
Wooes thee with scents of wild-honey and clover.

II

Beside the wall the roses blow
That Noon's hot breezes scarcely shake;
Beside the wall the poppies glow,
So full of fire their deep hearts ache;
The drowsy butterflies fly slow,
Half sleeping, half awake.

Sweet Noontide, Rest,--
A reaper sleeping,--
His head on thy breast,
Thy redolent breast,
Dreams of the reaping,
While sounds of the scythes all around him are sweeping.