Chapter III

Along lone paths the cricket cries,
Where Night distils dim scent and dew;
One mad star 'thwart the heaven flies,
A glittering curve of molten blue;
Now grows the big moon in the skies;
The stars are faint and few.

Sweet Night, the vows
Of love long taken,
Against thy brows
Lay their pale brows,
Till thy soul is shaken
Of amorous dreams that make it awaken.

THE FAMILY BURYING GROUND

A wall of crumbling stones doth keep
Watch o'er long barrows where they sleep,
Old, chronicled grave-stones of its dead,
On which oblivion's mosses creep
And lichens gray as lead.

Warm days, the lost cows, as they pass,
Rest here and browse the juicy grass
That springs about its sun-scorched stones;
Afar one hears their bells' deep brass
Waft melancholy tones.

Here the wild morning-glory goes
A-rambling, and the myrtle grows;
Wild morning-glories, pale as pain,
With holy urns, that hint at woes,
The night hath filled with rain.

Here are the largest berries seen,
Rich, winey-dark, whereon the lean
Black hornet sucks; noons, sick with heat,
That bend not to the shadowed green
The heavy, bearded wheat.

At night, for its forgotten dead,
A requiem, of no known wind said,
Through ghostly cedars moans and throbs,
While to the starlight overhead
The shivering screech-owl sobs.

CLOUDS

All through the tepid summer night
The starless sky had poured a cool
Monotony of pleasant rain
In music beautiful.

And for an hour I sat to watch
Clouds moving on majestic feet;
And heard down avenues of night
Their hearts of thunder beat.

Prodigious limbs, far-veined with gold,
Pulsed fiery life o'er wood and plain,
While, scattered, fell from giant hands
The largess of the rain.

Beholding at each lightning flash
Their generous silver on the sod,
In meek devotion bowed, I thanked
These almoners of God.

THE HERON

I

EVENING

A vein of flame, the long creek crawls
Beneath dark brows of woodland walls,
Red where the sunset's crimson falls.
One wiry leg drawn to his breast,
Neck-shrunk, at solitary rest,
The heron stands among the bars.

II

NIGHT

The whimpering creek breaks on the stone,
Where for a while the new moon shone
With one white star and one alone.
Lank haunter of lone marshy lands
The melancholy heron stands,
Then, clamoring, dives into the stars.

AVATARS

I

When the moon hangs low
Over an afterglow,
Lilac and lily;
When the stars are high,
Wisps in a windless sky,
Silverly stilly:--

He, who will lean, his inner ear compelling,
May hear the spirit of the forest stream
Its story to a wildwood flower telling,
That is no flower but some ascended dream.