Chapter IV: Prologue

_There is a poetry that speaks
Through common things: the grasshopper,
That in the hot weeds creaks and creaks,
Says all of summer to my ear:
And in the cricket’s cry I hear
The fireside speak, and feel the frost
Work mysteries of silver near
On country casements, while, deep lost
In snow, the gatepost seems a sheeted ghost._

_And other things give rare delight:
The guttural harps the green-frogs tune,
Those minstrels of the falling night,
That hail the sickle of the moon
From grassy pools that glass her lune:
Or,--all of August in its loud
Dry cry,--the locust’s call at noon,
That emphasizes heat, no cloud
Of lazy white makes less with its cool shroud._

_The rain,--whose cloud dark-lids the moon,
That great white eyeball of the night,--
Makes music for me; to its tune
I hear the flowers unfolding white,
The mushroom growing, and the slight
Green sound of grass that dances near;
The melon ripening with delight;
And in the orchard, soft and clear,
The apple redly rounding out its sphere._

_The grigs make music as of old,
To which the fairies whirl and shine
Within the moonlight’s prodigal gold,
On woodways wild with many a vine:
When all the wilderness with wine
Of stars is drunk, I hear it say--
“Is God restricted to confine
His wonders only to the day,
That yields the abstract tangible to clay?”_

_And to my ear the wind of Morn,--
When on her rubric forehead far
One star burns big,--lifts a vast horn
Of wonder where all murmurs are:
In which I hear the waters war,
The torrent and the blue abyss,
And pines,--that terrace bar on bar
The mountain side,--like lovers kiss,
And whisper words where all of grandeur is._

_The jutting crags,--dark, iron-veined
With ore,--the peaks, where eagles scream,
That pour their cataracts, rainbow-stained,
Like hair, in many a mountain stream,
Can lift my soul beyond the dream
Of all religions; make me scan
No mere external or extreme,
But inward pierce the outward plan
And learn that rocks have souls as well as man._

IN THE SHADOW OF THE BEECHES

In the shadow of the beeches,
Where the fragile wildflowers bloom;
Where the pensive silence pleaches
Green a roof of cool perfume,
Have you felt an awe imperious
As when, in a church, mysterious
Windows paint with God the gloom?

In the shadow of the beeches,
Where the rock-ledged waters flow;
Where the sun’s slant splendor bleaches
Every wave to foaming snow,
Have you felt a music solemn
As when minster arch and column
Echo organ worship low?

In the shadow of the beeches,
Where the light and shade are blent;
Where the forest-bird beseeches,
And the breeze is brimmed with scent,--
Is it joy or melancholy
That o’erwhelms us partly, wholly,
To our spirit’s betterment?

In the shadow of the beeches
Lay me where no eye perceives;
Where,--like some great arm that reaches
Gently as a love that grieves,--
One gnarled root may clasp me kindly
While the long years, working blindly,
Slowly change my dust to leaves.

A FALLEN BEECH

Nevermore at doorways that are barken
Shall the madcap wind knock and the moonlight;
Nor the circle which thou once didst darken,
Shine with footsteps of the neighboring moonlight,
Visitors for whom thou oft didst hearken.

Nevermore, gallooned with cloudy laces,
Shall the morning, like a fair freebooter,
Make thy leaves his richest treasure-places;
Nor the sunset, like a royal suitor,
Clothe thy limbs with his imperial graces.

And no more, between the savage wonder
Of the sunset and the moon’s up-coming,
Shall the storm, with boisterous hoof-beats, under
Thy dark roof dance, Faun-like, to the humming
Of the Pan-pipes of the rain and thunder.

Oft the Satyr-spirit, beauty-drunken,
Of the Spring called; and the music measure
Of thy sap made answer; and thy sunken
Veins grew vehement with youth, whose pressure
Swelled thy gnarly muscles, winter-shrunken.

And the germs, deep down in darkness rooted,
Bubbled green from all thy million oilets,
Where the spirits, rain and sunbeam suited,
Of the April made their whispering toilets,
Or within thy stately shadow footed.

Oft the hours of blonde Summer tinkled
At the windows of thy twigs, and found thee
Bird-blithe; or, with shapely bodies, twinkled
Lissom feet of naked flowers around thee,
Where thy mats of moss lay sunbeam-sprinkled.

And the Autumn with his gypsy-coated
Troop of days beneath thy branches rested,
Swarthy-faced and dark of eye; and throated
Songs of hunting; or with red hand tested
Every nut-burr that above him floated.

Then the Winter, barren-browed, but rich in
Shaggy followers of frost and freezing,
Made the floor of thy broad boughs his kitchen,
Trapper-like, to camp in; grimly easing
Limbs snow-furred and moccasined with lichen.

Now, alas! no more do these invest thee
With the dignity of whilom gladness!
They--unto whose hearts thou once confessed thee
Of thy dreams--now know thee not! and sadness
Sits beside thee where, forgot, dost rest thee.

A COIGNE OF THE FOREST

The hills hang woods around, where green, below
Dark, breezy boughs of beech-trees, mats the moss,
Crisp with the brittle hulls of last year’s nuts;
The water hums one bar there; and a glow
Of gold lies steady where the trailers toss
Red, bugled blossoms and a rock abuts;
In spots the wild-phlox and oxalis grow
Where beech-roots bulge the loam, and welt across
The grass-grown road and roll it into ruts.

And where the sumach brakes grow dusk and dense,
Among the rocks, great yellow violets,
Blue-bells and windflowers bloom; the agaric
In dampness crowds; a fungus, thick, intense
With gold and crimson and wax-white, that sets
The May-apples along the terraced creek
At bold defiance. Where the old rail-fence
Divides the hollow, there the bee-bird whets
His bill, and there the elder hedge is thick.

No one can miss it; for two cat-birds nest,
Calling all morning, in the trumpet-vine;
And there at noon the pewee sits and floats
A woodland welcome; and his very best
At eve the red-bird sings, as if to sign
The record of its loveliness with notes.
At night the moon stoops over it to rest,
And unreluctant stars, in whose faint shine
There runs a whisper as of wind-swept oats.

A HOUSE IN THE HILLS

Old hearts that hold the saddest memories
Are the most beautiful; and such make sweet
Light, happy moods of younger natures which
Their sadness contacts and so sanctifies.

And such to me is an old gabled house,
Deserted, and neglected, and unknown,
Lost in the tangled hollow of its hills,
Dark, cedared hills, and dreamy orchard-lands;
With but its host of shrouded memories
Haunting its ruined rooms and desolate halls,--
Pathetic with their fallen finery,--
And whispering through its cob-webbed crevices
And roomy hearths, that sigh with ceaseless wind,
Undreamed of things that happened long ago.

Here in gray afternoons I love to sit,
And hear the running rain along the roof;
The creak and crack of noises that are born
Of silence or mysterious agencies;
The fitful footfalls of the wind adown
Grand, winding stairways, massy banistered;
A clapping door and then a sudden hush
As if the old house held its breath to see,--
Invisible to me,--a presence pass,
That brings a pleasant terror stiffening through
The tingling veins and staring from the eyes.
Then comes the rain again along the roof;
And in rain-rotted room and rain-stained hall
The drip and whisper of the wind and rain
Seem viewless footsteps of the sometime lords
And mistresses who lived here in the past.
And could the state material but assume
A state clairvoyant, then the dream-drugged eyes,
Perhaps, might see, from room to dusty room,
The ghosts of stately gentlemen glide by,
And glimmering ladies, all beruffled, trail
Long, haughty silks miraculously stiff.

THE WIND

“_Wind of the East, if thou pass by the land where my
loved ones dwell, I pray,
The fullest of greetings bear to them from me, their lover, and say
That I am the pledge of passion still._”--

FROM THE ARABIC.

The ways of the wind are eerie,
And I love them all:
The blithe, the mad, and the dreary,
Spring, winter, and fall.

When it tells to the waiting crocus
Its beak to show;
And hangs on the wayside locust
Bloom-bunches of snow.

When it comes like a balmy blessing
From the musky wood,
The half-grown roses caressing
Till their cheeks burn blood.

When it roars in the autumn season,
And whines with rain,
Or sleet, like a mind without reason,
Or a soul in pain.

When the woodways, once so spicy
With bud and bloom,
Are desolate, dead and icy
As the icy tomb.

When the puffed owl, crouched and frowsy,
In the hollow tree,
Sobs, dolorous, cold, and drowsy,
Its shuddering melody.

Then I love to sit in December
Where the big hearth sings,
And, dreaming, forget and remember
A host of things.

And the wind--I hear how it strangles,
And wails and sighs
On the roof’s sharp, shivering angles
That front the skies.

How it shouts and romps and tumbles
In attics o’erhead;
In the great-throated chimney rumbles,
Then all at once falls dead;

Then comes like the footsteps stealing
Of a child on the stair,
Or a bent, old gentleman feeling
His slippered way with care.

And my soul grows anxious-hearted
For those once dear--
The long-lost loves, departed,
In the wind draw near.

And I seem to see their faces--
Not one estranged--
In their old accustomed places
Round the wide hearth ranged.

And the wind, that waits and poises
Where the shadows sway,
Seems their visionary voices
Calling me far away.

Then I wake in tears and hear it
Wailing outside my door,--
Or is it some wandering spirit
Weeping upon the moor?

RAIN IN THE WOODS

When on the leaves the rain persists,
And every gust brings showers down;
When copse and woodland smoke with mists,
I take the old road out of town
Into the hills through which it twists.

I find the vale where catnip grows,
Where boneset blooms, with moisture bowed;
The vale through which the red creek flows,
Turbid with hill-washed clay, and loud
As some wild horn a huntsman blows.

Around the root the beetle glides,
A burnished beryl; and the ant,
Large, agate-red, a garnet, slides
Beneath the rock; and every plant
Is roof for some frail thing that hides.

Like knots against the trunks of trees
The lichen-colored moths are pressed;
And, wedged in hollow blooms, the bees
Hang pollen-clotted; in its nest
The wasp has crawled and lies at ease.

The locust harsh, that sharply saws
The silence of the summer noon;
The katydid, that thinly draws
Its fine file o’er the bars of moon;
And grasshopper that drills each pause:

The mantis, long-clawed, furtive, lean--
Fierce feline of the insect hordes--
And dragonfly, gauze-winged and green,
Beneath the wild-grape’s leaves and gourd’s,
Have housed themselves and rest unseen.

The butterfly and forest-bird
Are huddled on the same gnarled bough,
From which, like some rain-voweled word
That dampness hoarsely utters now,
The tree-toad’s guttural voice is heard.

I crouch and listen: and again
The woods are filled with phantom forms--
With shapes, grotesque in cloudy train,
That rise and reach to me cool arms
Of mist: dim, wandering wraiths of rain.

I see them come; fantastic, fair;
Chill, mushroom-colored: sky and earth
Grow ghostly with their floating hair
And trailing limbs, that have their birth
In wetness--fungi of the air.

O wraiths of rain! O ghosts of mist!
Still fold me, hold me, and pursue!
Still let my lips by yours be kissed!
Still draw me with your hands of dew
Unto the tryst, the dripping tryst.

HEAT

I

Now is it as if Spring had never been,
And Winter but a memory and a dream,
Here where the Summer stands, her lap of green
Heaped high with bloom and beam,
Among her blackberry-lilies, low that lean
To kiss her feet; or, freckle-browed, that stare
Upon the dragonfly which, slimly seen,
Like a blue jewel flickering in her hair,
Sparkles above them there.

II

Knee-deep among the tepid pools the cows
Chew a slow cud or switch a slower tail,
Half-sunk in sleep beneath the beechen boughs,
Where thin the wood-gnats ail.
From bloom to bloom the languid butterflies drowse;
The sleepy bees make hardly any sound;
The only things the sun-rays can arouse,
It seems, are two black beetles rolling round
Upon the dusty ground.

III

Within its channel glares the creek and shrinks,
Beneath whose rocks the furtive crawfish hides
In stagnant places, where the green frog blinks,
And water-strider glides.
Far hotter seems it for the bird that drinks,
The startled kingfisher that screams and flies;
Hotter and lonelier for the purples and pinks
Of weeds that bloom, whose sultry perfumes rise
Stifling the swooning skies.

IV

From ragweed fallows, rye-fields, heaped with sheaves,
From blistering rocks, no moss or lichens crust,
And from the road, where every hoof-stroke heaves
A cloud of burning dust,
The hotness quivers, making limp the leaves,
That loll like panting tongues. The pulsing heat
Seems a wan wimple that the Summer weaves,
A veil, in which she wraps,--as in a sheet,--
The shriveling corn and wheat.

V

Furious, incessant in the weeds and briers
The sawing weed bugs sing: and, heat-begot,
The grasshoppers, so many strident wires,
Staccato stinging hot:
A lash of whirling sound that never tires,
The locust flails the noon, where harnessed Thirst,
Beside the road-spring, many a shod hoof mires,
Into the trough thrusts his hot head; immersed,
Round which cool bubbles burst.

VI

The sad, sweet voice of some wood-spirit who
Laments while watching a loved oak-tree die,
From the deep forest comes the wood-dove’s coo,
A long, lost, lonely cry.--
Oh, for a breeze! a mighty wind to woo
The woods to stormy laughter; sow like grain
The world with freshness of invisible dew,
And pile above far, fevered hill and plain
Cloud-bastions, black with rain.

YOUNG SEPTEMBER

I

With a look and a laugh where the stream was flowing,
September led me along the land;
Where the goldenrod and lobelia, glowing,
Seemed burning torches within her hand.
And faint as the thistle’s or milkweed’s feather
I glimpsed her form in the sparkling weather.

II

Now ’twas her hand and now her hair
That tossed me welcome everywhere;
That lured me onward through the stately rooms
Of forest, hung and carpeted with glooms,
And windowed wide with azure, doored with green,
Through which rich glimmers of her robe were seen--
Now, like some deep marsh-mallow, rosy-gold;
Now, like the great Joe-Pye-weed, fold on fold
Of heavy mauve; and now, like the intense
Massed ironweed, a purple opulence.

III

Along the bank in a wild procession
Of gold and sapphire the blossoms blew;
And borne on the breeze came their soft confession
In syllabled musk and honey-dew;
In words unheard that their lips kept saying,
Sweet as the lips of children praying.