Undertones Part 3

A dream of drouth made audible Before its door, hot, smooth, and shrill All day the locust sings.... What other spell Shall hold it, lazier still Than the long day's, now tell?--

Dusk and the cricket and the strain Of tree-toad and of frog; and stars That burn above the rich west's ribbed stain; And dropping pasture bars, And cow-bells up the lane.

Night and the moon and katydid, And leaf-lisp of the wind-touched boughs; And mazy shadows that the fire-flies thrid; And sweet breath of the cows; And the lone owl here hid.

CLEARING

Before the wind, with rain-drowned stocks, The pleated crimson hollyhocks Are bending; And, smouldering in the breaking brown, Above the hills that edge the town, The day is ending.

The air is heavy with the damp; And, one by one, each cottage lamp Is lighted; Infrequent pa.s.sers of the street Stroll on or stop to talk or greet, Benighted.

I look beyond my city yard, And watch the white moon struggling hard, Cloud-buried; The wind is driving toward the east, A wreck of pearl, all cracked and creased And serried.

At times the moon, erupting, streaks Some long cloud; like Andean peaks That double Horizon-vast volcano chains, The earthquake scars with lava veins That bubble.

The wind that blows from out the hills Is like a woman's touch that stills A sorrow: The moon sits high with many a star In the deep calm: and fair and far Abides to-morrow.

REQUIEM

I.

No more for him, where hills look down, Shall Morning crown Her rainy brow with blossom bands!-- Whose rosy hands Drop wild flowers of the breaking skies Upon the sod 'neath which he lies.-- No more! no more!

II.

No more for him where waters sleep, Shall Evening heap The long gold of the perfect days!

Whose pale hand lays Great poppies of the afterglow Upon the turf he rests below.-- No more! no more!

III.

No more for him, where woodlands loom, Shall Midnight bloom The star-flow'red acres of the blue!

Whose brown hands strew Dead leaves of darkness, hushed and deep, Upon the grave where he doth sleep.-- No more! no more!

IV.

The hills that Morning's footsteps wake; The waves that take A brightness from the Eve; the woods O'er which Night broods, Their spirits have, whose parts are one With his whose mortal part is done.

Whose part is done!

AT LAST

What shall be said to him, Now he is dead?

Now that his eyes are dim, Low lies his head?

What shall be said to him, Now he is dead?

One word to whisper of Low in his ear; Sweet, but the one word "love"

Haply he'll hear.

One word to whisper of Low in his ear.

What shall be given him, Now he is dead?

Now that his eyes are dim, Low lies his head?

What shall be given him, Now he is dead?

Hope, that life long denied Here to his heart, Sweet, lay it now beside, Never to part.

Hope, that life long denied Here to his heart.

A DARK DAY

Though Summer walks the world to-day With corn-crowned hours for her guard, Her thoughts have clad themselves in gray, And wait in Autumn's weedy yard.

And where the larkspur and the phlox Spread carpets wheresoe'er she pa.s.s, She seems to stand with sombre locks Bound bleak with fog-washed zinnias.--

Fall's terra-cotta-colored flowers, Whose disks the trickling wet has tinged With dingy l.u.s.tre when the bower's Thin, flame-flecked leaves the frost has singed;

Or with slow feet, 'mid gaunt gold blooms Of marigolds her fingers twist, She seems to pa.s.s with Fall's perfumes, And dreams of sullen rain and mist.

FALL

Sad-hearted spirit of the solitudes, Who comest through the ruin-wedded woods!

Gray-gowned with fog, gold-girdled with the gloom Of tawny twilights; burdened with perfume Of rain-wet uplands, chilly with the mist; And all the beauty of the fire-kissed Cold forests crimsoning thy indolent way, Odorous of death and drowsy with decay.

I think of thee as seated 'mid the showers Of languid leaves that cover up the flowers,-- The little flower-sisterhoods, whom June Once gave wild sweetness to, as to a tune A singer gives her soul's wild melody,-- Watching the squirrel store his granary.

Or, 'mid old orchards I have pictured thee: Thy hair's profusion blown about thy back; One lovely shoulder bathed with gipsy black; Upon thy palm one nestling cheek, and sweet The rosy russets tumbled at thy feet.

Was it a voice lamenting for the flowers?

A heart-sick bird, that sang of happier hours?

A cricket dirging days that soon must die?

Or did the ghost of Summer wander by?