Chapter V

’Tis the Spirit of Autumn, no man sees,
The mother of Death and of Mysteries,
Who cries on the wind all night to these,
“O my children, come home!”
The Spirit of Autumn, pierced with pain,
Calling her children home again,
Death and Dreams, through ruin and rain,--
“O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!”

THE LAND OF HEARTS MADE WHOLE

Do you know the way that goes
Over fields of rue and rose,--
Warm of scent and hot of hue,
Roofed with heaven’s bluest blue,--
To the Vale of Dreams Come True?

Do you know the path that twines,
Banked with elder bosks and vines,
Under boughs that shade a stream,
Hurrying, crystal as a gleam,
To the Hills of Love a-Dream?

Tell me, tell me, have you gone
Through the fields and woods of dawn,
Meadowlands and trees that roll,
Great of grass and huge of bole,
To the Land of Hearts Made Whole?

On the way, among the fields,
Poppies lift vermilion shields,
In whose hearts the golden Noon,
Murmuring her drowsy tune,
Rocks the sleepy bees that croon.

On the way, amid the woods,
Mandrakes muster multitudes,
’Mid whose blossoms, white as tusk,
Glides the glimmering Forest-Dusk,
With her moths of fluttering musk.

Here you hear the stealthy stir
Of shy lives of hoof and fur;
Harmless things that hide and peer,
Hearts that sucked the milk of fear--
Fox and rabbit, squirrel and deer.

Here you see the mossy flight
Of faint forms that love the night--
Whippoorwill and owlet-things,
Whose weird call before you brings
Wonder-worlds of happenings.

Now in sunlight, now in shade,
Water, like a brandished blade,
Foaming forward, wild of flight,
Startles, then arrests the sight,
Whirling steely loops of light.

Through the tree-tops, down the vale,
Breezes roam, and leave a trail
Of cool music that the birds,--
Following in happy herds,--
Gather up in twittering words.

Blossoms, frail and manifold,
Shower the way with pearl and gold;
Blurs, that seem the darling print
Of the Springtime’s feet, or glint
Of her twinkling gown’s torn tint.

There the Myths of old endure:
Dreams that are the world-soul’s cure;
Things that have no place or play
In the facts of Everyday
Round your presence smile and sway.

Suddenly your eyes may see,
Stepping softly from a tree,--
Slim of form and wet with dew,--
The brown Dryad; lips the hue
Of a berry bit into.

You may mark the Naiad rise
From her pool’s reflected skies;
In her gaze the heaven that dreams,
Starred, in twilight-haunted streams,
Mixed with water’s grayer gleams.

You may see the laurel’s girth,
Big with bloom, give fragrant birth
To the Oread whose hair,--
Musk and darkness, light and air,--
Fills the hush with wonder there.

You may mark the rocks divide,
And the Faun before you glide,
Piping on a magic reed,
Sowing many a music-seed,
From which bloom and mushroom bead.

Of the rain and sunlight born,
Young of beard and young of horn,
You may see the Satyr lie,
With a very knowing eye,
Teaching fledgeling birds to fly.

These shall cheer and follow you
Through the Vale of Dreams Come True:
Wind-like voices, leaf-like feet;
Forms of mist and hazy heat,
In whose pulses sunbeams beat.

Lo! you tread enchanted ground!
From the hollows all around
Elf and spirit, gnome and fay,
Guide your feet along the way
Till the dewy close of day.

Then beside you, jet on jet,
Emerald-hued and violet,
Flickering, floats a firefly light,
Aye to guide your steps aright
From the valley to the height.

Steep the way is; when at last,
Vale and wood and stream are passed,
From the heights you shall behold
Panther heavens of spotted gold
Tiger-tawny deeps unfold.

You shall see on stocks and stones
Sunset’s bell-deep color tones
Fallen; and the valleys filled
With dusk’s purple music, spilled
On the silence, rapture-thrilled.

Then, as answering bell greets bell,
Night ring in her miracle
Of the doméd dark, o’er-rolled,
Note on note, with starlight cold,
’Twixt the moon’s broad peal of gold.

On the hill-top Love-a-Dream
Shows you then her window-gleam;
Brings you home and folds your soul
In the peace of vale and knoll,
In the Land of Hearts Made Whole.

THE WIND OF SUMMER

From the hills and far away
All the long, warm summer day
Comes the Wind and seems to say:

“Come, oh, come! and let us go
Where the meadows bend and blow,
Waving with the white-tops’ snow.

“’Neath the hyssop-colored sky
’Mid the meadows we will lie
Watching the white clouds roll by;

“While your hair my hands shall press
With a cooling tenderness
Till your grief grows less and less:

“Come, oh, come! and let us roam
Where the rock-cut waters comb
Flowing crystal into foam.

“Under trees whose trunks are brown,
On the banks that violets crown,
We will watch the fish flash down;

“While my voice your ear shall soothe
With a whisper soft and smooth
Till your care shall wax uncouth.

“Come! where forests, line on line,--
Armies of the oak and pine,--
Scale the hills and shout and shine.

“We will wander, hand in hand,
Ways where tall the toadstools stand,
Mile-stones white of Fairyland.

“While your eyes my lips shall kiss,
Dewy as a wild-rose is,
Till they gaze on naught but bliss.

“On the meadows you will hear,
Leaning low your spirit ear,
Cautious footsteps drawing near.

“You will deem it but a bee,
Murmuring soft and sleepily,
Till your inner sight shall see

“’Tis a presence passing slow,
All its shining hair ablow,
Through the white-tops’ tossing snow.

“By the waters, if you will,
And your inmost soul is still,
Melody your ears shall fill.

“You will deem it but the stream
Rippling onward in a dream,
Till upon your gaze shall gleam

“Arm of spray and throat of foam--
’Tis a spirit there a-roam
Where the radiant waters comb.

“In the forest, if you heed,
You shall hear a magic reed
Sow sweet notes like silver seed.

“You will deem your ears have heard
Stir of tree or song of bird,
Till your startled eyes are blurred

“By a vision, instant seen,
Naked gold and naked green,
Glimmering the boughs between.

“Follow me! and you shall see
Wonder-worlds of mystery
That are only known to me!”

Thus outside my city door
Speaks the Wind its wildwood lore,
Speaks, and lo! I go once more.

THE WIND OF WINTER

The Winter Wind, the wind of death,
Who knocked upon my door,
Now through the key-hole entereth,
Invisible and hoar:
He breathes around his icy breath
And treads the flickering floor.

I heard him, wandering in the night,
Tap at my window pane,
With ghostly fingers, snowy white,
I heard him tug in vain,
Until the shuddering candle-light
Did cringe with fear and strain.

The fire, awakened by his voice,
Leapt up with frantic arms,
Like some wild babe that greets, with noise,
Its father home who storms,
With rosy gestures that rejoice
And crimson kiss that warms.

Now in the hearth he sits and, drowned
Among the ashes, blows;
Or through the room goes stealing round
On cautious-stepping toes,
Deep-mantled in the drowsy sound
Of night that sleets and snows.

And oft, like some thin fairy-thing,
The stormy hush amid,
I hear his captive trebles ring
Beneath the kettle’s lid;
Or now a harp of elfland string
In some dark cranny hid.

Again I hear him, imp-like, whine,
Cramped in the gusty flue;
Or knotted in the resinous pine
Raise goblin cry and hue,
While through the smoke his eyeballs shine,
A sooty red and blue.

At last I hear him, nearing dawn,
Take up his roaring broom,
And sweep wild leaves from wood and lawn,
And from the heavens the gloom,
To show the gaunt world lying wan,
And morn’s cold rose a-bloom.

THE LEAF-CRICKET

I

Small twilight singer
Of dew and mist: thou ghost-gray, gossamer winger
Of dusk’s dim glimmer,
How cool thy note sounds; how thy wings of shimmer
Vibrate, soft-sighing,
Meseems, for Summer that is dead or dying.
I stand and listen,
And at thy song the garden-beds, that glisten
With rose and lily,
Seem touched with sadness; and the tuberose chilly,
Breathing around its cold and colorless breath,
Fills the pale evening with wan hints of death.

II

I see thee quaintly
Beneath the leaf; thy shell-shaped winglets faintly--
As thin as spangle
Of cobwebbed rain--held up at airy angle;
I hear thy tinkle,
Thy fairy notes, the silvery stillness sprinkle;
Investing wholly
The moonlight with divinest melancholy:
Until, in seeming,
I see the Spirit of the Summer dreaming
Amid her ripened orchards, apple-strewn,
Her great, grave eyes fixed on the harvest-moon.

III

As dewdrops beady,
As mist minute, thy notes ring low and reedy:
The vaguest vapor
Of melody, now near; now, like some taper
Of sound, far fading--
Thou will-o’-wisp of music aye evading.
Among the bowers,
The fog-washed stalks of Autumn’s weeds and flowers,
By hill and hollow,
I hear thy murmur and in vain I follow--
Thou jack-o’-lantern voice, thou elfin cry,
Thou dirge, that tellest Beauty she must die.

IV

And when the frantic
Wild winds of Autumn with the dead leaves antic;
And walnuts scatter
The mire of lanes; and dropping acorns patter
In grove and forest,
Like some frail grief, with the rude blast thou warrest,
Sending thy slender
Far cry against the gale, that, rough, untender,
Untouched of sorrow,
Sweeps thee aside, where, haply, I to-morrow
Shall find thee lying, tiny, cold and crushed,
Thy weak wings folded and thy music hushed.

THE OWLET

I

When dusk is drowned in drowsy dreams,
And slow the hues of sunset die;
When firefly and moth go by,
And in still streams the new-moon gleams,
A sickle in the sky:
Then from the hills there comes a cry,
The owlet’s cry:
A shivering voice that sobs and screams,
That, frightened, screams:--

“Who is it, who is it, who?
Who rides through the dusk and dew,
With a pair of horns,
As thin as thorns,
And face a bubble-blue?
Who, who, who!
Who is it, who is it, who?”

II

When night has dulled the lily’s white,
And opened wide the moonflower’s eyes,
When pale mists rise and veil the skies,
And round the height in whispering flight
The night wind sounds and sighs:
Then in the woods again it cries,
The owlet cries:
A shivering voice that calls in fright,
In maundering fright:--

“Who is it, who is it, who?
Who walks with a shuffling shoe,
’Mid the gusty trees,
With a face none sees,
And a form as ghostly too?
Who, who, who!
Who is it, who is it, who?”