Golden Numbers Part 7

I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret, By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the br.i.m.m.i.n.g river; For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a l.u.s.ty trout, And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake Upon me, as I travel, With many a silvery waterbreak Above the golden gravel.

I steal by lawns and gra.s.sy plots, I slide by hazel covers; I move the sweet forget-me-nots That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeams dance Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses; I linger by my s.h.i.+ngly bars; I loiter round my cresses.

And out again I curve and flow To join the br.i.m.m.i.n.g river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

_The Brook in Winter_

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, From the snow five thousand summers old; On open wold and hill-top bleak It had gathered all the cold, And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek; It carried a s.h.i.+ver everywhere From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; The little brook heard it and built a roof 'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof; All night by the white stars' frosty gleams He groined his arches and matched his beams; Slender and clear were his crystal spars As the lashes of light that trim the stars; He sculptured every summer delight In his halls and chambers out of sight; Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt Down through a frost-leaved forest crypt, Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees Bending to counterfeit a breeze; Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew; But silvery mosses that downward grew; Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear For the gladness of heaven to s.h.i.+ne through, and here He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops And hung them thickly with diamond drops, That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, And made a star of every one: No mortal builder's most rare device Could match this winter-palace of ice; 'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay In his depths serene through the summer day, Each flitting shadow of earth and sky, Lest the happy model should be lost, Had been mimicked in fairy masonry By the elfin builders of the frost.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

_From "The Vision of Sir Launfal."_

_Clear and Cool_

Clear and cool, clear and cool, By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool; Cool and clear, cool and clear, By s.h.i.+ning s.h.i.+ngle, and foaming wear; Under the crag where the ouzel sings, And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings, Undefiled, for the undefiled; Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.

Dank and foul, dank and foul, By the smoky town in its murky cowl; Foul and dank, foul and dank, By wharf and sewer and slimy bank; Darker and darker the farther I go, Baser and baser the richer I grow; Who dare sport with the sin-defiled?

Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child.

Strong and free, strong and free, The floodgates are open, away to the sea, Free and strong, free and strong, Cleansing my streams as I hurry along, To the golden sands, and the leaping bar, And the taintless tide that awaits me afar.

As I lose myself in the infinite main, Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again.

Undefiled, for the undefiled; Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

_From "The Water-Babies."_

_Minnows_

How silent comes the water round that bend; Not the minutest whisper does it send To the overhanging sallows; blades of gra.s.s Slowly across the chequer'd shadows pa.s.s,-- Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds; Where swarms of minnows show their little heads, Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams, To taste the luxury of sunny beams Tempered with coolness. How they ever wrestle With their own sweet delight, and ever nestle Their silver bellies on the pebbly sand.

If you but scantily hold out the hand, That very instant not one will remain; But turn your eye, and they are there again.

The ripples seem right glad to reach those cresses, And cool themselves among the em'rald tresses; The while they cool themselves, they freshness give, And moisture, that the bowery green may live.

JOHN KEATS.

_Snow-Bound_

(Extracts)

The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.

Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set.

A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, A hard dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of life-blood in the sharpened face, The coming of the snow-storm told.

The wind blew east: we heard the roar Of ocean on his wintry sh.o.r.e, And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Unwarmed by any sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made h.o.a.ry with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, As zig-zag wavering to and fro Crossed and recrossed the winged snow: And ere the early bedtime came The white drift piled the window-frame, And through the gla.s.s the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

The old familiar sights of ours Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, Or garden wall, or belt of wood; A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, A fenceless drift what once was road; The bridle-post an old man sat With loose-flung coat and high c.o.c.ked hat; The well-curb had a Chinese roof; And even the long sweep, high aloof, In its slant splendor, seemed to tell Of Pisa's leaning miracle.

All day the gusty north wind bore The loosening drift its breath before; Low circling round its southern zone, The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.

No church-bell lent its Christian tone To the savage air, no social smoke Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.

A solitude made more intense By dreary-voiced elements, The shrieking of the mindless wind, The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, And on the gla.s.s the unmeaning beat Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.

Beyond the circle of our hearth No welcome sound of toil or mirth Unbound the spell, and testified Of human life and thought outside.

We minded that the sharpest ear The buried brooklet could not hear, The music of whose liquid lip Had been to us companions.h.i.+p, And in our lonely life, had grown To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank From sight beneath the smothering bank, We piled with care, our nightly stack Of wood against the chimney-back,-- The oaken log, green, huge and thick, And on its top the stout back-stick; The knotty fore-stick laid apart, And filled between with curious art The ragged brush; then hovering near, We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, Until the old rude-fas.h.i.+oned room Burst flower-like into rosy bloom; While radiant with a mimic flame Outside the sparkling drift became, And through the bare-boughed lilac tree Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.

The crane and pendent trammels showed, The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed; While childish fancy, prompt to tell The meaning of the miracle, Whispered the old rhyme: "_Under the tree,_ _When fire outdoors burns merrily,_ _There the witches are making tea_."

Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about, Content to let the north wind roar In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost-line back with tropic heat; And ever, when a louder blast Shook beam and rafter as it pa.s.sed, The merrier up its roaring draught The great throat of the chimney laughed, The house-dog on his paws outspread Laid to the fire his drowsy head, The cat's dark silhouette on the wall A couchant tiger's seemed to fall; And, for the winter fireside meet, Between the andirons' straddling feet, The mug of cider simmered slow, The apples sputtered in a row, And close at hand the basket stood With nuts from brown October's wood.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

_Highland Cattle_

Down the wintry mountain Like a cloud they come, Not like a cloud in its silent shroud When the sky is leaden and the earth all dumb, But tramp, tramp, tramp, With a roar and a shock, And stamp, stamp, stamp, Down the hard granite rock, With the snow-flakes falling fair Like an army in the air Of white-winged angels leaving Their heavenly homes, half grieving, And half glad to drop down kindly upon earth so bare: With a snort and a bellow Tossing manes dun and yellow, Red and roan, black and gray, In their fierce merry play, Though the sky is all leaden and the earth all dumb-- Down the noisy cattle come!

Throned on the mountain Winter sits at ease: Hidden under mist are those peaks of amethyst That rose like hills of heaven above the amber seas.

While crash, crash, crash, Through the frozen heather brown, And dash, dash, dash, Where the ptarmigan drops down And the curlew stops her cry And the deer sinks, like to die-- And the waterfall's loud noise Is the only living voice-- With a plunge and a roar Like mad waves upon the sh.o.r.e, Or the wind through the pa.s.s Howling o'er the reedy gra.s.s-- In a wild battalion pouring from the heights unto the plain, Down the cattle come again!