Lyrics of Earth Part 3

THE MOON-PATH

The full, clear moon uprose and spread Her cold, pale splendor o'er the sea; A light-strewn path that seemed to lead Outward into eternity.

Between the darkness and the gleam An old-world spell encompa.s.sed me: Methought that in a G.o.dlike dream I trod upon the sea.

And lo! upon that glimmering road, In s.h.i.+ning companies unfurled, The trains of many a primal G.o.d, The monsters of the elder world; Strange creatures that, with silver wings, Scarce touched the ocean's thronging floor, The phantoms of old tales, and things Whose shapes are known no more.

Giants and demi-G.o.ds who once Were dwellers of the earth and sea, And they who from Deucalion's stones, Rose men without an infancy; Beings on whose majestic lids Time's solemn secrets seemed to dwell, Tritons and pale-limbed Nereids, And forms of heaven and h.e.l.l.

Some who were heroes long of yore, When the great world was hale and young; And some whose marble lips yet pour The murmur of an antique tongue; Sad queens, whose names are like soft moans, Whose griefs were written up in gold; And some who on their silver thrones Were G.o.ddesses of old.

As if I had been dead indeed, And come into some after-land, I saw them pa.s.s me, and take heed, And touch me with each mighty hand; And evermore a murmurous stream, So beautiful they seemed to me, Not less than in a G.o.dlike dream I trod the s.h.i.+ning sea.

COMFORT OF THE FIELDS

What would'st thou have for eas.e.m.e.nt after grief, When the rude world hath used thee with despite, And care sits at thine elbow day and night, Filching thy pleasures like a subtle thief?

To me, when life besets me in such wise, 'Tis sweetest to break forth, to drop the chain, And grasp the freedom of this pleasant earth, To roam in idleness and sober mirth, Through summer airs and summer lands, and drain The comfort of wide fields unto tired eyes.

By hills and waters, farms and solitudes, To wander by the day with wilful feet; Through fielded valleys wide with yellowing wheat; Along gray roads that run between deep woods, Murmurous and cool; through hallowed slopes of pine, Where the long daylight dreams, unpierced, unstirred, And only the rich-throated thrush is heard; By lonely forest brooks that froth and s.h.i.+ne In bouldered crannies buried in the hills; By broken beeches tangled with wild vine, And log-strewn rivers murmurous with mills.

In upland pastures, sown with gold, and sweet With the keen perfume of the ripening gra.s.s, Where wings of birds and filmy shadows pa.s.s, Spread thick as stars with s.h.i.+ning marguerite; To haunt old fences overgrown with brier, m.u.f.fled in vines, and hawthorns, and wild cherries, Rank poisonous ivies, red-bunched elderberries, And pied blossoms to the heart's desire, Gray mullein towering into yellow bloom, Pink-ta.s.seled milkweed, breathing dense perfume, And swarthy vervain, tipped with violet fire.

To hear at eve the bleating of far flocks, The mud-hen's whistle from the marsh at morn; To skirt with deafened ears and brain o'erborne Some foam-filled rapid charging down its rocks With iron roar of waters; far away Across wide-reeded meres, pensive with noon, To hear the querulous outcry of the loon; To lie among deep rocks, and watch all day On liquid heights the snowy clouds melt by; Or hear from wood-capped mountain-brows the jay Pierce the bright morning with his jibing cry.

To feast on summer sounds; the jolted wains, The thrasher humming from the farm near by, The prattling cricket's intermittent cry, The locust's rattle from the sultry lanes; Or in the shadow of some oaken spray, To watch, as through a mist of light and dreams, The far-off hay-fields, where the dusty teams Drive round and round the lessening squares of hay, And hear upon the wind, now loud, now low, With drowsy cadence half a summer's day, The clatter of the reapers come and go.

Far violet hills, horizons filmed with showers, The murmur of cool streams, the forest's gloom, The voices of the breathing gra.s.s, the hum Of ancient gardens overbanked with flowers: Thus, with a smile as golden as the dawn, And cool fair fingers radiantly divine, The mighty mother brings us in her hand, For all tired eyes and foreheads pinched and wan, Her restful cup, her beaker of bright wine: Drink, and be filled, and ye shall understand!

AT THE FERRY

On such a day the shrunken stream Spends its last water and runs dry; Clouds like far turrets in a dream Stand baseless in the burning sky.

On such a day at every rod The toilers in the hay-field halt, With dripping brows, and the parched sod Yields to the crus.h.i.+ng foot like salt.

But here a little wind astir, Seen waterward in jetting lines, From yonder hillside topped with fir Comes pungent with the breath of pines; And here when all the noon hangs still, White-hot upon the city tiles, A perfume and a wintry chill Breathe from the yellow lumber-piles.

And all day long there falls a blur Of noises upon listless ears, The rumble of the trams, the stir Of barges at the clacking piers; The champ of wheels, the crash of steam, And ever, without change or stay, The drone, as through a troubled dream, Of waters falling far away.

A tug-boat up the farther sh.o.r.e Half pants, half whistles, in her draught; The cadence of a creaking oar Falls drowsily; a corded raft Creeps slowly in the noonday gleam, And wheresoe'er a shadow sleeps The men lie by, or half a-dream, Stand leaning at the idle sweeps.

And all day long in the quiet bay The eddying amber depths r.e.t.a.r.d, And hold, as in a ring, at play, The heavy saw-logs notched and scarred; And yonder between cape and shoal, Where the long currents swing and s.h.i.+ft, An aged punt-man with his pole Is searching in the parted drift.

At moments from the distant glare The murmur of a railway steals Round yonder jutting point the air Is beaten with the puff of wheels; And here at hand an open mill, Strong clamor at perpetual drive, With changing chant, now hoa.r.s.e, now shrill, Keeps dinning like a mighty hive.

A furnace over field and mead, The rounding noon hangs hard and white; Into the gathering heats recede The hollows of the Chelsea height; But under all to one quiet tune, A spirit in cool depths withdrawn, With logs, and dust, and wrack bestrewn, The stately river journeys on.

I watch the swinging currents go Far down to where, enclosed and piled, The logs crowd, and the Gatineau Comes rus.h.i.+ng from the northern wild.

I see the long low point, where close The sh.o.r.e-lines, and the waters end, I watch the barges pa.s.s in rows That vanish at the tapering bend.

I see as at the noon's pale core-- A shadow that lifts clear and floats-- The cabin'd village round the sh.o.r.e, The landing and the fringe of boats; Faint films of smoke that curl and wreathe, And upward with the like desire The vast gray church that seems to breathe In heaven with its dreaming spire.

And there the last blue boundaries rise, That guard within their compa.s.s furled This plot of earth: beyond them lies The mystery of the echoing world; And still my thought goes on, and yields New vision and new joy to me, Far peopled hills, and ancient fields, And cities by the crested sea.

I see no more the barges pa.s.s, Nor mark the ripple round the pier, And all the uproar, ma.s.s on ma.s.s, Falls dead upon a vacant ear.

Beyond the tumult of the mills, And all the city's sound and strife, Beyond the waste, beyond the hills, I look far out and dream of life.

SEPTEMBER

Now hath the summer reached her golden close, And, lost amid her corn-fields, bright of soul, Scarcely perceives from her divine repose How near, how swift, the inevitable goal: Still, still, she smiles, though from her careless feet The bounty and the fruitful strength are gone, And through the soft long wondering days goes on The silent sere decadence sad and sweet.

The kingbird and the pensive thrush are fled, Children of light, too fearful of the gloom; The sun falls low, the secret word is said, The mouldering woods grow silent as the tomb; Even the fields have lost their sovereign grace, The cone-flower and the marguerite; and no more, Across the river's shadow-haunted floor, The paths of skimming swallows interlace.

Already in the outland wilderness The forests echo with unwonted dins; In clamorous gangs the gathering woodmen press Northward, and the stern winter's toil begins.

Around the long low shanties, whose rough lines Break the sealed dreams of many an unnamed lake, Already in the frost-clear morns awake The crash and thunder of the falling pines.

Where the tilled earth, with all its fields set free, Naked and yellow from the harvest lies, By many a loft and busy granary, The hum and tumult of the thrashers rise; There the tanned farmers labor without slack, Till twilight deepens round the spouting mill, Feeding the loosened sheaves, or with fierce will, Pitching waist-deep upon the dusty stack.

Still a brief while, ere the old year quite pa.s.s, Our wandering steps and wistful eyes shall greet The leaf, the water, the beloved gra.s.s; Still from these haunts and this accustomed seat I see the wood-wrapt city, swept with light, The blue long-shadowed distance, and, between, The dotted farm-lands with their parcelled green, The dark pine forest and the watchful height.

I see the broad rough meadow stretched away Into the crystal suns.h.i.+ne, wastes of sod, Acres of withered vervain, purple-gray, Branches of aster, groves of goldenrod; And yonder, toward the sunlit summit, strewn With shadowy boulders, crowned and swathed with weed, Stand ranks of silken thistles, blown to seed, Long silver fleeces s.h.i.+ning like the noon.

In far-off russet corn-fields, where the dry Gray shocks stand peaked and withering, half concealed In the rough earth, the orange pumpkins lie, Full-ribbed; and in the windless pasture-field The sleek red horses o'er the sun-warmed ground Stand pensively about in companies, While all around them from the motionless trees The long clean shadows sleep without a sound.

Under cool elm-trees floats the distant stream, Moveless as air; and o'er the vast warm earth The fathomless daylight seems to stand and dream, A liquid cool elixir--all its girth Bound with faint haze, a frail transparency, Whose lucid purple barely veils and fills The utmost valleys and the thin last hills, Nor mars one whit their perfect clarity.

Thus without grief the golden days go by, So soft we scarcely notice how they wend, And like a smile half happy, or a sigh, The summer pa.s.ses to her quiet end; And soon, too soon, around the c.u.mbered eaves Sly frosts shall take the creepers by surprise, And through the wind-touched reddening woods shall rise October with the rain of ruined leaves.

A RE-a.s.sURANCE

With what doubting eyes, oh sparrow, Thou regardest me, Underneath yon spray of yarrow, Dipping cautiously.