Chapter IV

And this, meseems, does the cat-bird say,
As the blossoms crowd i’ the sun:--
“Up, up! and out! oh, out and away!
Up, up! and out, each one!
Sweethearts! sweethearts! oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!
Come listen and hark to me!
The Spring, the Spring, with her fragrant feet,
Is passing this way!--Oh, hark to the beat
Of her bee-like heart!--Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!
Come! open your eyes and see!
See, see, see!”

DAYS COME AND GO

Leaves fall and flowers fade,
Days come and go:
Now is sweet Summer laid
Low in her leafy glade,
Low like a fragrant maid,
Low, low, ah, low.

Tears fall and eyelids ache,
Hearts overflow:
Here for our dead love’s sake
Let us our farewells make--
Will he again awake?
Ah, no, no, no.

Winds sigh and skies are gray,
Days come and go:
Wild birds are flown away:
Where are the blooms of May?--
Dead, dead, this many a day,
Under the snow.

Lips sigh and cheeks are pale,
Hearts overflow:
Will not some song or tale,
Kiss, or a flower frail,
With our dead love avail?--
Ah, no, no, no.

THE WANING YEAR

A sense of something that is sad and strange;
Of something that is felt as death is felt,--
As shadows, phantoms, in a haunted grange,--
Around me seems to melt.

It rises, so it seems, from the decay
Of the dim woods; from withered leaves and weeds,
And dead flowers hanging by the woodland way
Sad, hoary heads of seeds.

And from the cricket’s song,--so feeble now
’Tis like a sound heard in the heart, a call
Dreamier than dreams;--and from the shaken bough,
And acorns’ drowsy fall.

From scents and sounds it rises, sadly slow,
This presence, that hath neither face nor form;
That in the woods sits like demented woe,
Whispering of wreck and storm.

A presence wrought of melancholy grief,
And dreams that die; that, in the streaming night,
I shall behold, like some fantastic leaf,
Beat at my window’s light.

That I shall hear, outside my storm-lashed door,
Moan like the wind in some rain-tortured tree;
Or round my roof and down my chimney roar
All the wild night to me.

GRAY NOVEMBER

I

Dull, dimly gleaming,
The dawn looks downward
Where, flowing townward,
The river, steaming
With mist, is hidden:
Each bush, that huddles
Beside the road,--the rain has pooled with puddles,--
Seems, in the fog, a hag or thing hag-ridden.

II

Where leaves hang tattered
In forest tangles,
And woodway angles
Are acorn-scattered,
Coughing and yawning
The woodsman slouches,
Or stands as silent as the hound that crouches
Beside him, ghostly in the mist-drenched dawning.

III

Through roses, rotting
Within the garden,--
With blooms, that harden,
Of marigolds, knotting,
(Each one an ember
Dull, dead and dripping,)
Her brow, from which their faded wreath is slipping,
Mantled in frost and fog, comes in November.

WHAT OF IT THEN

I

Well, what of it then, if your heart be weighed with the yoke
Of the world’s neglect? and the smoke
Of doubt, blown into your eyes, makes night of your road?
And the sting of the goad,
The merciless goad of scorn,
And the rise and fall
Of the whip of necessity gall,
Till your heart, forlorn,
Indignant, in rage would rebel?
And your bosom fill,
And sobbingly swell,
With bitterness, yea, against God and ’gainst Fate,
Fate, and the world of men,
What of it then?...
Let it be as it will,
If you labor and wait,
You, too, will arrive, and the end for you, too, will be well.
What of it then, say I! yea, what of it then!

II

Well, what of it then? if the hate of the world and of men
Make wreck of your dreams again?
What of it then
If contumely and sneer,
And ignorant jibe and jeer,
Be heaped upon all that you do and dream:
And the irresistible stream
Of events overwhelm and submerge
All effort--or so it may seem?
Not all, not all shall be lost,
Not all, in the merciless gurge
And pitiless surge!--
Though you see it tempestuously tossed,
Though you see it sink down or sweep by,
Not in vain did you strive, not in vain!
The struggle, the longing and toil
Of hand and of heart and of brain,
Not in vain was it all, say I!
For out of the wild turmoil
And seething and soil
Of Time, some part of the whole will arise,
Arise and remain,
In spite of the wrath of the skies
And the hate of men.--
What of it then, say I! yea, what of it then!

WOMANHOOD

I

The summer takes its hue
From something opulent as fair in her,
And the bright heav’n is brighter than it was;
Brighter and lovelier,
Arching its beautiful blue,
Serene and soft, as her sweet gaze, o’er us.

II

The springtime takes its moods
From something in her made of smiles and tears,
And flowery earth is flowerier than before,
And happier, it appears,
Adding new multitudes
To flowers, like thoughts, that haunt us evermore.