Lyrics of Earth Part 5

Tho' the biting north wind breaks Full across this drifted hold, Let us stand with iced cheeks Watching westward as of old;

Past the violet mountain-head To the farthest fringe of pine, Where far off the purple-red Narrows to a dusky line, And the last pale splendors die Slowly from the olive sky;

Till the thin clouds wear away Into threads of purple-gray, And the sudden stars between Brighten in the pallid green;

Till above the s.p.a.cious east, Slow returned one by one, Like pale prisoners released From the dungeons of the sun, Capella and her train appear In the glittering Charioteer;

Till the rounded moon shall grow Great above the eastern snow, s.h.i.+ning into burnished gold; And the silver earth outrolled, In the misty yellow light, Shall take on the width of night.

WINTER-STORE

Subtly conscious, all awake, Let us clear our eyes, and break Through the cloudy chrysalis, See the wonder as it is.

Down a narrow alley, blind, Touch and vision, heart and mind; Turned sharply inward, still we plod, Till the calmly smiling G.o.d Leaves us, and our spirits grow More thin, more acrid, as we go.

Creeping by the sullen wall, We forego the power to see, The threads that bind us to the All, G.o.d or the Immensity; Whereof on the eternal road Man is but a pa.s.sing mode.

Too blind we are, too little see Of the magic pageantry, Every minute, every hour, From the cloudflake to the flower, Forever old, forever strange, Issuing in perpetual change From the rainbow gates of Time.

But he who through this common air Surely knows the great and fair, What is lovely, what sublime, Becomes in an increasing span, One with earth and one with man, One, despite these mortal scars, With the planets and the stars; And Nature from her holy place, Bending with unveiled face, Fills him in her divine employ With her own majestic joy.

Up the fielded slopes at morn, Where light wefts of shadow pa.s.s, Films upon the bending corn, I shall sweep the purple gra.s.s.

Sun-crowned heights and mossy woods, And the outer solitudes, Mountain-valleys, dim with pine, Shall be home and haunt of mine.

I shall search in crannied hollows, Where the sunlight scarcely follows, And the secret forest brook Murmurs, and from nook to nook Forever downward curls and cools, Frothing in the bouldered pools.

Many a noon shall find me laid In the pungent balsam shade, Where sharp breezes spring and s.h.i.+ver On some deep rough-coasted river, And the plangent waters come, Amber-hued and streaked with foam; Where beneath the sunburnt hills All day long the crowded mills With remorseless champ and scream Overlord the sluicing stream, And the rapids' iron roar Hammers at the forest's core; Where corded rafts creep slowly on, Glittering in the noonday sun, And the tawny river-dogs, Shepherding the branded logs, Bind and heave with cadenced cry; Where the blackened tugs go by, Panting hard and straining slow, Laboring at the weighty tow, Flat-nosed barges all in trim, Creeping in long c.u.mbrous line, Loaded to the water's brim With the clean, cool-scented pine.

Perhaps in some low meadow-land, Stretching wide on either hand, I shall see the belted bees Rocking with the tricksy breeze In the spired meadow-sweet, Or with eager trampling feet Burrowing in the boneset blooms, Treading out the dry perfumes.

Where sun-hot hay-fields newly mown Climb the hillside ruddy brown, I shall see the haymakers, While the noonday scarcely stirs, Brown of neck and booted gray, Tossing up the rustling hay, While the hay-racks bend and rock, As they take each scented c.o.c.k, Jolting over dip and rise; And the wavering b.u.t.terflies O'er the s.p.a.ces brown and bare Light and wander here and there.

I shall stray by many a stream, Where the half-shut lilies gleam.

Napping out the sultry days In the quiet secluded bays; Where the ta.s.seled rushes tower, O'er the purple pickerel-flower.

And the floating dragon-fly-- Azure glint and crystal gleam-- Watches o'er the burnished stream With his eye of ebony; Where the bull-frog lolls at rest On his float of lily-leaves, That the swaying water weaves, And distends his yellow breast, Lowing out from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e With a hollow vibrant roar; Where the softest wind that blows As it lightly comes and goes, O'er the jungled river meads, Stirs a whisper in the reeds, And wakes the crowded bull-rushes From their stately reveries, Flas.h.i.+ng through their long-leaved hordes Like a brandis.h.i.+ng of swords; There, too, the frost-like arrow-flowers Tremble to the golden core, Children of enchanted hours, Whom the rustling river bore In the night's bewildered noon, Woven of water and the moon.

I shall hear the gra.s.shoppers From the parched gra.s.s rehea.r.s.e, And with drowsy note prolong Evermore the same thin song.

I shall hear the crickets tell Stories by the humming well, And mark the locust, with quaint eyes, Caper in his cloak of gray Like a jester in disguise Rattling by the dusty way.

I shall dream by upland fences, Where the season's wealth condenses Over many a weedy wreck, Wild, uncared-for, desert places, That sovereign Beauty loves to deck With her softest, dearest graces.

There the long year dreams in quiet, And the summer's strength runs riot.

Shall I not remember these, Deep in winter reveries?

Berried brier and thistle-bloom, And milkweed with its dense perfume; Slender vervain towering up In a many-branched cup, Like a candlestick, each spire Kindled with a violet fire; Matted creepers and wild cherries, Purple-bunched elderberries, And on scanty plots of sod Groves of branchy goldenrod.

What though autumn mornings now, Winterward with glittering brow, Stiffen in the silver gra.s.s; And what though robins flock and pa.s.s, With subdued and sober call, To the old year's funeral; Though October's crimson leaves Rustle at the gusty door, And the tempest round the eaves Alternate with pipe and roar; I sit, as erst, unharmed, secure, Conscious that my store is sure, Whatsoe'er the fenced fields, Or the untilled forest yields Of unhurt remembrances, Or thoughts, far-glimpsed, half-followed, these I have reaped and laid away, A treasure of unwinnowed grain, To the garner packed and gray Gathered without toil or strain.

And when the darker days shall come, And the fields are white and dumb; When our fires are half in vain, And the crystal starlight weaves Mockeries of summer leaves, Pictured on the icy pane; When the high aurora gleams Far above the Arctic streams Like a line of s.h.i.+fting spears, And the broad pine-circled meres, Glimmering in that spectral light, Thunder through the northern night; Then within the bolted door I shall con my summer store; Though the fences scarcely show Black above the drifted snow, Though the icy sweeping wind Whistle in the empty tree, Safe within the sheltered mind, I shall feed on memory.

Yet across the windy night Comes upon its wings a cry; Fas.h.i.+oned forms and modes take flight, And a vision sad and high Of the laboring world down there, Where the lights burn red and warm, p.r.i.c.ks my soul with sudden stare, Glowing through the veils of storm.

In the city yonder sleep Those who smile and those who weep, Those whose lips are set with care, Those whose brows are smooth and fair; Mourners whom the dawning light Shall grapple with an old distress; Lovers folded at midnight In their bridal happiness; Pale watchers by beloved beds, Fallen a-drowse with nodding heads, Whom sleep captured by surprise, With the circles round their eyes; Maidens with quiet-taken breath, Dreaming of enchanted bowers; Old men with the mask of death; Little children soft as flowers; Those who wake wild-eyed and start In some madness of the heart; Those whose lips and brows of stone Evil thoughts have graven upon, Shade by shade and line by line, Refas.h.i.+oning what was once divine.

All these sleep, and through the night, Comes a pa.s.sion and a cry, With a blind sorrow and a might, I know not whence, I know not why, A something I cannot control, A nameless hunger of the soul.

It holds me fast. In vain, in vain, I remember how of old I saw the ruddy race of men, Through the glittering world outrolled, A gay-smiling mult.i.tude, All immortal, all divine, Treading in a wreathed line By a pathway through a wood.

THE SUN CUP

The earth is the cup of the sun, That he filleth at morning with wine, With the warm, strong wine of his might From the vintage of gold and of light, Fills it, and makes it divine.

And at night when his journey is done, At the gate of his radiant hall, He setteth his lips to the brim, With a long last look of his eye, And lifts it and draineth it dry, Drains till he leaveth it all Empty and hollow and dim.

And then, as he pa.s.ses to sleep, Still full of the feats that he did, Long ago in Olympian wars, He closes it down with the sweep Of its slow-turning luminous lid, Its cover of darkness and stars, Wrought once by Hephaestus of old With violet and vastness and gold.