Chapter IV

And so, meseemed, I heard them tell
How here her loving glance once fell
Upon this bank, and from its azure grew
The ageratum mist-flower’s happy hue;
How from her kiss, as crimson as the dawn,
The cardinal-flow’r drew its vermilion;
And from her hair’s blond touch th’ elecampane
Evolved the glory of its golden rain;
While from her starry footsteps, redolent,
The aster pearled its flowery firmament.

THE VINTAGER

Among the fragrant grapes she bows;
Long violet clusters heap her hands:
And, with bright brows, on him bestows
Sweet looks, like soft commands.

And from her sunburnt throat, at times,
As bubbles burst on new-made wine,
A happy fit of merry rhymes
Rings down the hills of vine.

And in his heart, remorseless, sweet,
Grew big the red-grape, passion, there;
His heart, that, ever at her feet,
Was filled with love’s despair.

But she, who ne’er the honeyed must
Of love had drained, a grown-up child,
Saw in him--merely one to trust,
And broke his heart, and smiled.

BLACK VESPER’S PAGEANTS

The day, all fierce with carmine, turns
An Indian face towards Earth and dies;
The west, like some gaunt vase, inurns
Its ashes under smoldering skies;
Athwart whose bowl one red cloud streams,
Wild as some dream an Aztec dreams.

Now shadows mass above the world,
And night comes on with wind and rain;
The mulberry-colored leaves are hurled
Like frantic hands against the pane.
And through the forests, bending low,
Night stalks like some gigantic Woe.

In hollows where the thistle shakes
A hoar bloom like a witch’s light,
From weed and flower the rain-wind rakes
Dead sweetness--as a wildman might,
From autumn leaves, the woods among,
Dig some dead woman, fair and young.

Now let me walk the woodland ways,
Alone! except for thoughts, that are
Akin to such wild nights and days--
A portion of the storm that far
Fills Heaven and Earth tumultuously,
And my own soul with ecstasy.

A TWILIGHT MOTH

Dusk is thy dawn; when Eve puts on her state
Of gold and purple in the marbled west,
Thou comest forth like some embodied trait,
Or dim conceit, a lily-bud confessed;
Or, of a rose, the visible wish; that, white,
Goes softly messengering through the night,
Whom each expectant flower makes its guest.

All day the primroses have thought of thee,
Their golden heads close-haremed from the heat;
All day the mystic moonflowers silkenly
Veiled snowy faces,--that no bee might greet
Or butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed;--
Keeping Sultana-charms for thee, at last,
Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.

Cool-throated flowers that avoid the day’s
Too fervid kisses; every bud that drinks
The tipsy dew and to the starlight plays
Nocturnes of fragrance, thy wing’d shadow links
In bonds of secret brotherhood and faith;
O bearer of their order’s shibboleth,
Like some pale symbol fluttering o’er these pinks.

What dost thou whisper in the balsam’s ear
That sets it blushing, or the hollyhock’s,--
A syllabled silence that no man may hear,--
As dreamily upon its stem it rocks?
What spell dost bear from listening plant to plant,
Like some white witch, some ghostly ministrant,
Some spectre of some perished flower of phlox?

O voyager of that universe which lies
Between the four walls of this garden fair,--
Whose constellations are the fireflies
That wheel their instant courses everywhere,--
’Mid fairy firmaments wherein one sees
Mimic Boötes and the Pleiades,
Thou steerest like some fairy ship-of-air.

Gnome-wrought of moonbeam-fluff and gossamer,
Silent as scent, perhaps thou chariotest
Mab or King Oberon; or, haply, her
His queen, Titania, on some midnight quest.--
Oh for the herb, the magic euphrasy,
That should unmask thee to mine eyes, ah me!
And all that world at which my soul hath guessed!

THE GRASSHOPPER

I

What joy you take in making hotness hotter,
In emphasizing dullness with your buzz,
Making monotony more monotonous!
When summer comes, and drouth hath dried the water
In all the creeks, we hear your ragged rasp
Filing the stillness. Or,--as urchins beat
A stagnant pond whereon the bubbles gasp,--
Your switch-like music whips the midday heat.
O burr of sound caught in the Summer’s hair,
We hear you everywhere.

II

We hear you in the vines and berry-brambles,
Along the unkempt lanes, among the weeds,
Amid the shadeless meadows, gray with seeds,
And by the wood, round which the rail-fence rambles,
Sawing the sunlight with your sultry saw.
Or,--like to tomboy truants, at their play
With noisy mirth among the barn’s deep straw,--
You sing away the careless summer-day.
O brier-like voice that clings in idleness
To Summer’s drowsy dress.

III

You tramp of insects, vagrant and unheeding,
Improvident, who of the summer make
One long green meal-time, and for winter take
No care, aye singing or just merely feeding!
Happy-go-lucky vagabond,--though frost
Shall pierce, ere long, your coat of green or brown,
And pinch your body,--let no song be lost,
But as you lived, into your grave go down--
Like some small poet with his little rhyme,
Forgotten of all time.

FOREST AND FIELD