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Title: Among the Trees Again

Author: Evaleen Stein

Release date: December 7, 2015 [eBook #50634]

Most recently updated: October 22, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by David Edwards, David Maranhao and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMONG THE TREES AGAIN ***

Among the Trees Again

COPYRIGHT 1902

THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY

OCTOBER

To the memory of my beloved brother

Orth Harper Stein

CONTENTS

PAGE

AMONG THE TREES AGAIN

3

APRIL CONTRADICTIONS

21

APRIL MORNING

8

AS TO THE SUMMER AIR THE ROSE

34

AT NIGHT

50

BETWEEN SEASONS

40

BINDWEED

46

BY THE KANKAKEE

64

CACTUS LAND, THE

67

CASCADE RAVINE, THE

71

DREAM ECHOES

20

EARLY NOVEMBER

79

FISHER FOLK, THE

66

FOREBODING

74

GOLDEN WEDDING, THE

78

HOME FIELDS, THE

52

IDEALS

30

IMPATIENT

58

IN LATE SEPTEMBER

75

IN SUMMER DEEPS

54

IN THE MISSION GARDEN, SAN GABRIEL

16

IN THE MOONLIGHT

45

JANUARY THAW

84

JUNE

42

LAST SURVIVOR FROM THE LIFE BOAT, THE

69

LITTLE LOVE SONG, A

41

LITTLE SISTER, THE

88

MONTEZUMA

38

MORNING ON THE MOUNTAINS

85

MY LITTLE MASTER

12

NORTHMEN’S SONG OF THE POLE, THE

14

ON HEARING THE BALLAD “ALLEN PERCY”

11

ON THE PRAIRIE

62

OVER THE SIERRA

61

PERFECT FRIENDSHIP, THE

83

PLEA, A

22

RAIN ON THE RIVER

59

REDBIRD, THE

6

SEA-DREAMS

28

SEA-GARDENS OF SANTA CATALINA, THE

89

SONG

55

SONG OF THOUGHT, A

44

SUMMER SHOWER, THE

49

SUNNY NOON

77

SYMPATHY

53

TO THE “WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE”

31

THRUSH, THE

36

WHEREFORE WINGS?

81

WINTRY TINTS

82

WISHING-SPRING, THE

7

WOOD FANCY, A

35

Among the Trees Again

I saw a meadow-land, one day;

The grass stood green and high,

But naught appealed in any way

To stay the passer-by.

Till suddenly the sunlight strayed

Those leafy tangles through,

And touched to fire, on every blade

A golden network grew!

A million airy cobwebs gleamed

So silken-soft and bright,

That all the level lowland seemed

A tracery of light.

And as I watched the webs, I thought

The field of life along,

As slight as these, so I have wrought

With slender threads of song.

They bind the grass, and blossoms, too,

The bee and butterfly,

And some go faintly wavering through

The tender azure sky.

Yet still I wait that golden glow

Whose fine transmuting art

Must smite my web of song, and so

Reveal it to the heart.

Ah therefore, thou, I pray thee, touch

These frail threads I have spun,

With grace of sympathy, for such

Might light them like the sun!

AMONG THE TREES AGAIN

AYE, throb, my heart! is it not sweet to be,

To breathe, to bide, by growing things once more!

We did not guess before

How close our life was locked in greenery.

Hark! how the sparrows in the apple tree

Are chattering, chirping, till their tiny throats

Are fairly brimmed and quivering through and through

With rollick notes!

Good morrow, little birds!

Good morrow! morrow!—O, I would I knew

Some light-winged language, kindred singing words

Wherein to say

This day, this day, at last this happy day

I come to be a neighbor unto you!

Too long, too long, we heard strange footsteps pass,

Harsh, strident echoes stricken out of stone;

But never softened by green, growing grass,

Or mellowed to faint, earthy undertone.

And then, O heart,

Did we not ofttimes feel ourselves apart,

Alone,

Wrought to vague discord by some touch unknown?

Did we not weary with a nameless grief,

In dreaming of tall clover, daisy sown,

Or music blown

From the wind-harping of some little leaf?

It was not that within the city’s core

There dwelt no sympathies, nor interests keen,

No human ties to temper its fatigues.

—’Twas only that we needed something more;

Some note rang wrong;

A foolish fancy, may be, but still strong,

That life sang sweeter snatched between the green

Close-lapping verdure of a fret of twigs.

Where all the ground was paven out of sight,

And only from a far-off strip of sky

My mother Nature strove to speak to me,

I could not harken to her voice aright;

I knew not why,

But ever to mine ears some whispering tree

Seemed of the inmost golden soul of her,

The best interpreter.

And so what wonder, Life, that you and I,

Shut out from such glad confidence, should miss

And grieve for this.

—But all this yearning we’ll forget; for now

Within my window,

So,

By finger-tips,

I’ll draw into mine arms this dancing bough,

And stroke its silky buds across my lips.

O generous-natured, friendly, neighbor tree!

Weave gentle blessings in the shade and shine;

And granting gracious patience to my plea,

Some simple lesson of your lore make mine,

Make mine, I pray!

O, be a kindly teacher unto me,

And I’ll pour out such worshipful heart-wine,

Not any bird that sings to you all day,

Or nestles to low, leafy lullaby,

Shall hold you in such dear observance, nay,

Nor love you half so tenderly as I.

THE REDBIRD

SWEPT lightly by the south wind

The elm leaves softly stirred,

And in their pale green clusters

There straightway bloomed a bird!

His glossy feathers glistened

With dyes as richly red

As any tulip flaming

From out the garden bed.

But ah, unlike the tulips,

In joyous strain, ere long,

This redbird flower unfolded

A heart of golden song!

THE WISHING-SPRING

I KNELT beside the fairy spring,

Among the tasseled weeds;

Far off, with dreamy murmuring,

The wind piped through the reeds.

Once, twice, the brimming cup I raised

With trembling finger-tips,

And in its limpid crystal gazed,

Nor laid it to my lips.

Ah me! the eager heart-desires,

So thronging swift they came,

My spirit surged like wind-swept fires,

I knew not which to name.

—Then all at once, I quickly quaffed

The shining drops; but lo,

The wish with that enchanted draught

No man must ever know!

APRIL MORNING

I LEAN upon the bridge’s rail,

In idle joy, and gazing down,

So watch the frothy bubbles sail,

And bits of tangled grasses trail

Along the current’s tawny brown.

The river flows at full to-day;

And though within the tide it pours

There grow no mocking sycamores,

Nor any crystal hints betray

The spicewood thickets, nor the pale

Soft willow wands of pearly gray,

Whose interwoven mazes veil

The fretted banks, yet here and there,

Adown some swirling eddy, where

A delving sunbeam shines,

What mines

Of gleaming, streaming, liquid gold

The waters hold!

And so, by rapid currents rolled

In billowy swells that break and chime

In riotous tumult uncontrolled,

The March flood plashes past the pier;

But through its sweeping tones, I hear

The sweet, receding murmurs rhyme

The burden of the April time;

And throbbing like a glad refrain,

Now far, now full, now far again,

The freshened breeze

Blows gaily, bringing pure and clear

The fitful, tinkling cadences.

But listen! faint, from out the sheer

Deep borders of the morning sky,

Slips down the distance-softened cry

Of shy wild geese that northward fly;

It vibrates nearer, and more near,

—And see!

There! wheeling into sight,

Far as the vision may descry.

A level-winged advancing “V,”

They keep their swift, unswerving flight.

North, north, beyond that scudding fleece

Of tiny clouds, like wilder geese,

That join their ranks, and journey, too,

On,—on,—into the farthest blue.

Then, from the boundless space above,

I drop my dazzled eyes to view

The soft field-grass and meadow-rue,

The restful, brown earth, that I love.

A trick of blinding sun, maybe,

That halo on the hills may prove—

And yet, they are so dear to me,

The golden glory that they wear

Is like none other anywhere,

And, in my heart, I hold it true.

Though, surely, what least loving eye

Could wander up the river there,

And see aught otherwise than I?

Or could deny

That yonder little glimpse is fair?

The slender point of jutting land

Where, faintly burgeoning anew

With rounds of downy buds, there stand

A score of water-willow trees

In clustered tufts, and twinkling through,

Across the stream, beside of these,

A line of shining yellow light;

And half in sight,

And hidden half, upon the right,

By wild red-sumac shrubberies,

A windmill, rising tall and white,

Slow turning in the breeze.

And then beyond—but how express,

What word in any tongue conveys

The depth of dreamy tenderness

That laps, and wraps, and overlays

The far blue hills,

And spills and fills

The valleys with pale purple haze?

O, what sweet syllables confess

The glad heart-happiness that plays

Through all my pulses as I gaze,

And drink the beauty, past all praise—

The old, immortal blessedness

Of April days!

ON HEARING THE BALLAD “ALLEN PERCY”

A PLAINTIVE song, so strangely sweet and old,

That all my soul within itself would fold

And gently keep so quaint a melody,

That like a bird’s its notes of liquid gold

Might oft repeat their sweetness unto me.

A tale of joyless splendor long ago,

Of wedded lady and of loveless woe,

How she to soothe her sick heart’s misery

Cradled in vines her little child, and so

Sang of dear love beneath a greenwood tree.

And through it all there runs such saddest plaint,

As sweet as lutes, now murmurous, now faint,

Till, like the far-heard sighing of the sea,

It sweeps in gathering passion past restraint,

Then breaks, and croons in mournful minor key.

Ah, well-a-day! I listen breathless till

I half believe that sorrowing singer still

Dreams on divinely by the whispering tree;

For in your voice all tenderest heart-strings thrill,

And all the woodland’s marvelous minstrelsy!

MY LITTLE MASTER

O LITTLE poet, winging through

The sheer, clear blue,

Is it the sky you’re singing to?

Or is it that afar you see

Some leafy, laden apple-tree,

And half concealed and half confessed,

A nest?

Ah, truly now, I would I knew

The happy secret of your glee,

That joy wherewith you birds are blest,

Red-breast!

So airy and so light of wing,

You soar and sing,

I pray, could you not softly fling,

My merry minstrel, down to me

Some echo of that melody

That spills from out your tiny bill?

Some trill

Of all those liquid tones that ring

So full of purest poetry,

That rhyme, and chime, and thrill, until

They fill

These vibrant seas of azure air,

Whose blue tides bear

Their witching sweetness everywhere?

O little master, heed to me!

And ah, so true, so tenderly,

I’ll learn to sing how lovely grows

This rose,

Till, by and by, dear heart, I’ll dare

To touch some bolder note, maybe,

Some chord whence deeper music flows;

Who knows?

THE NORTHMEN’S SONG OF THE POLE

THE roar of the seas where the freezing clouds lower,

The shriek of the storm-wind, the turbulent tide,

The conquering currents, all vaunt of their power,

And taunt with the centuries’ secret they hide.

Of towering icebergs and glittering floes,

The sun of the midnight in luminous rings,

Of hopes held at bay by beleaguering snows,

Of man in his weakness the fierce ocean sings.

Bright over the sky the aurora is red,

And crimson as life-blood the snowflakes below;

Swift updarting streamers of fire overspread

All heaven and earth with a roseate glow.

Hark! Hark! to the rumble, the thunderous roar

Of the ancient ice-mountains that shatter and rend

And crash with the tide dashing up on the shore,

In turmoil titanic and toil without end.

O, woe to the ship that the pitiless clutch

Of those crushing ice-demons drags down to her doom!

The path to the pole is o’er-scattered with such,

And deep sleep the heroes the tempests entomb.

Beneath the wan moon of the long arctic night

The frost-smitten sea stretches boundless and lone;

The Shores of the Dead Men loom spectral and white,

In Helheim, the death-goddess waits for her own.

But ho, to her hatred! the soul of the brave

He bears not who dares not her fury defy!

And ho, to her giants of wind and of wave!

We crave but to meet and defeat them, or die!

Farewell, and farewell!—the anchor rope strains,

Loose cable and canvas, and hasten we forth!

The fire of desire quivers hot in our veins,

We must sail with the gale, to the north! to the north!

Must speed with the blast to its ultimate goal,

The path of its pinions must follow and find

The lure of the ages, the boreal pole,

And the measureless halls of the house of the wind!

IN THE MISSION GARDEN, SAN GABRIEL

O GOLDEN day, wherein at last,

Long leagues and wintry overpast,

I stand beneath a sky as blue

As April violets drenched in dew,

And live within a dream come true!

From rosy-berried pepper-trees

The winds blow spicy fragrances;

The palms sway softly to and fro,

And down below,

Between the glossy leaves of these,

The sparkling, yellow sunbeams steep

The mission garden, where the bees

Are hoarding deep

Of heliotrope that hangs the wall

As for some princely festival,

While white and tall

Bright lilies bloom in grace untold,

And those rare roses, passing all

In splendor, called “The Cloth of Gold!”

O heart, my heart, throb high and fast

With rapture! for how couldst thou know

Amid the far-off frost and snow

Where all the skies are overcast

And shrill and chill the north-winds blow,

How couldst thou know

December heavens anywhere

Could show such rare

Such tender and divinest guise,

That earth and air

Could weave such strange, resistless spell

As this that folds us flower-wise

At sweet San Gabriel!

San Gabriel! the holy words

Fall soft as music on the ear;

I think they are as sweet to hear

As any song of summer birds;

And harkening them, the while in clear,

Pure, quivering notes,

The ancient bells begin to chime,

In shadowy-wise before me floats

A vision of the vanished time.

I see again

The little band from sunny Spain,

Those godly ones, and full of grace,

And without stain,

Who, heeding neither toil nor pain,

Desiring men of every race,

That such might see sweet Jesus’ face,

And that at length the Lord might reign

Among all peoples, even so,

Sought in the wilderness this place,

And consecrated, long ago.

And gazing on the sacred pile

Their hands upreared in loving zeal,

My heart goes forth to them the while,

Those faithful fathers, true and leal!

How oft along each cloistered aisle

They counted o’er and o’er their beads,

While in this garden, unawares,

The fragrant flowers sowed their seeds.

—And richly as the flowers, the prayers

Bore fruit in gentle deeds!

In arched embrasures, lifted high

Against the sky,

The bells in clear-cut beauty show;

And loftier still, surmounting all,

And blessing thus the ancient wall,

A cross,—and on its summit, lo!

A slender bird with pearly breast

Sits peacefully at rest!

Ah me! Ah me! I know not why

This little bird with folded wings,

The cross, the tender azure sky,

Their pure, exceeding beauty brings

Swift tears, and smites my heart, till I

Am almost fain

To hide mine eyes for very pain!

Yet though thus for a little space

I bow my face,

Nor any grace

Of rose or lily can I see,

I know the while that memory,

Clear-eyed and free,

Upon my heart is graving deep

Each least, sweet loveliness, to keep

Through all the coming years for me.

And it shall be,

In afterwhiles, when far away,

When wintry skies are bleak and gray

And no birds sing,

I shall grow glad remembering

The sweetness of this scarlet day.

DREAM ECHOES

A LITTLE while ago I caught,

In cadence pure and clear,

A waft of faintest music, wrought

Upon my inner ear.

A part of some elusive theme

Whose sweetly solemn air

My soul had harkened in a dream,

I know not when nor where.

I only know my heart-strings stirred

With strange, forgotten pain,

That crept upon me as I heard

That unremembered strain.

A sense of loneliness untold,

So boundless, deep, unknown,

I blindly reached my hands to hold

Your palms within my own!

APRIL CONTRADICTIONS

I WATCH the little pear buds break

And slip their silky sheaths,

And flowers on the maples make

A thousand russet wreaths,

—Then something blinds my sight, and I

Am full of grief, yet know not why!

A rosy purple half betrays

The wealth the lilacs fold;

The torches of the tulips blaze

In flames of red and gold;

Peach boughs are blossoming above,

—But oh, the vague heartache thereof!

The blue sky wears in gentle wise

Its loveliness again;

All April sunshine,—yet mine eyes

Are brimmed with April rain!

The presage of sweet days to be,

So strange a sadness stirs in me!

A PLEA

TWO years ago, it is two years to-day,—

It seems a score!—since that sweet, bloomy May

When on the barren sea you sailed away.

The peach-trees then were in a rosy glow,

And down below,

The tulip buds had just begun to show.

—And yet, dear heart, I know

Though all the heaven smiled in tender blue,

It shone not so to you.

Sorrow had hooded all your skies in gray,

And when these dancing boughs put on their gay,

Bright May-time bravery, they only grieved

A heart bereaved.

And though glad robins sang to you to stay,

And by the stream the first sweet-flags unfurled

Seemed nature’s truce to sorrow,—every way

Held warring memories wherewith to gainsay

And send you wandering over half the world.

Ah, well do I remember how my prayers

Went with you, dear, and followed unawares;

So speeding ever, winging far and wide

About the path wherein your ship should ride,

And pleading Heaven that most gentle airs

And tempered tide

Might bear you safely to the farther side.

Then, when I knew your voyage over,—then,

—For surely now, at last, I may confess,

Now that I have outgrown its bitterness,

Though, sometimes, I can almost feel again,

Remembering those days, that keen distress,

Yes, jealousy it was! not any less,

That constantly

Wrapped all my thoughts of you beyond the sea!—

I feared lest other lives, more large and wide

Than mine has been, might, day by day, divide

And win your life and love away from me.

And I was fearful for dear nature, too;

I could not bear

To think that heaven anywhere should wear

A hue more deeply, more divinely blue

Than this home sky that we together knew;

Or that there grew

Strange bud or bloom to make the earth more fair.

—A most unworthy fancy, it is true;

Since nature is but nature everywhere,

The same kind mother, in whatever land;

So too, maybe, could we but understand,

All hearts and loves are only as a part

Of one great Heart

Whose universal pulses so expand

That any lesser life that therein beats

Should no more dream of this word “jealousy”

Than yonder shining flakes of bloom should be

Jealous, forsooth, of the whole hawthorn tree

That is but one with their own mass of sweets.

And so, at last, through blind, unreasoning grief

Beyond belief,

Brightly within my heart there did uprise

Love’s loyalty, rebuking in this wise:

“Has she not spoken, oft and oft again,

These three plain words ‘I love you’? Wherefore, then,

What right have you

To deem mere distance could her love undo?

To fancy aught exists that could estrange

Her heart from yours, wherein there is no change,

Or judge her own to be less simply true?”

And then, in shame, I swiftly put aside

All faintest questioning; thenceforth to abide

In trust as pure, as boundless, and as wide

As still sea-deeps, unvexed of any tide.

Nay, I have learned to cherish rightly, too,

All light and life that minister to you.

I hold most dear

Whatever least thing brings you smallest cheer;

And, day by day, my ceaseless prayer is this,

That from the changeful, many-colored grace

Of time and place,

Your grief may come to weave a chrysalis

Round its dead hopes, till waking, by and by,

It shall find wings to bear it to the sky.

—But, dear,—God knows I would not do you wrong,

Nor touch one heart-string if it be not strong,—

But O, so long,

So long it seems! You have been gone so long!

The feather-grass is growing green and high,

And, piping gaily in an azure throng,

The bluebirds spangle all the air with song;

Again aflame the rosy peach boughs burn;

—Can not you, too, return?

On slender stems the nodding wind-flowers blow,

And bloodroots grow

Where high the hedges fling their lacing frets

Along the lanes; while, softly sifting through

Tall plumy weeds and silver spider-nets,

The yellow sunbeams filter down below

Until I know

Not any fair Italian sky is blue

As is our earth to-day with violets!

Nor do I think that even that Syrian sun

You watched ride high above Damascus’ towers,

In purer light or richer splendor glowed

Than any one

Of these most lovely golden dawns of ours

That wake the birds along the river road.

The green ravines are newly fringed with fern;

From out the brake a robin red-breast calls;

The stream repeats, at rippling intervals,

“Can you not now return?”

But what avail in striving to compare

Earth’s endless beauties, whether east or west!

All lands are lovely, and I am aware

That unto me this little spot seems fair,

More rare

Than all the gathered glories of the rest,

Because I love it best.

And so, in truth, I feel that chief I plead

A selfish need;

I too, like nature, long to greet the spring!

Indeed I think I never have confessed,

Nor have you guessed

How much of May it is your gift to bring.

You never knew how wintry was the cloud

Of haunting sadness, that would ofttimes shroud

My inmost being, and creep up to chill

The warmer currents of my life,—until,

In knowing you,

I felt a pulse like that sweet, joyous thrill

That breaks the buds when all the skies are blue!

The bitter storms of grief I did not fear

When you were near.

But sometimes now I have grown half afraid

That unforgotten frost of pain that used

To wrap my nature will again invade

The singing streams your April touch had loosed.

Spring’s subtler spells alone I can not learn,

—Ah, will you not return?

Yet if it chance that prayed-for peace you sought

Be not at length to full perfection wrought,

If still in vain

Time strives with memory,—then, dear, I would fain

Let be as naught

All I have uttered; and I will refrain

From any whispered wish, or word, or thought,

That might to you in anywise complain.

However much my eager heart may miss,

How much for you my very soul may yearn,

I will seek patience, confident in this,

That some time, surely, Love shall conquer pain,

And then, dear heart, I know you will return.

SEA-DREAMS

I SAT upon the mossy rocks

Beside the southern sea,

While overhead the summer clouds

Were drifting lazily.

I watched their purple shadows trail

Across the sea and hide

Within the hollows of the waves

That rode the rising tide.

Sometimes the little flakes of foam

Dashed up in twinkling spray;

And out along their silver paths

The ships sailed far away.

As through the sun I followed them

With straining, eager eyes,

From out the sparkling waves I saw

A shining vision rise.

It seemed a ghostly castle white,

With battlement and tower,

That hung on the horizon’s verge

By some unearthly power.

I saw its spectral turrets gleam

As white as ivory,

And wondered who the wizard king

That reigned upon the sea.

—But while, with breathless gaze, I watched

This castle, by and by

It vanished in the underworld

Beyond the sea and sky!

IDEALS

I WOULD that I could weave a song

As airy and as light,

As are the roundelays that throng

Within my heart to-night.

I would that I might set to tune

The beauty of this hour,

When, like a primrose bud, the moon

Breaks into golden flower.

And all the happy, lilting notes,

Beyond divinest words,

That nestle in the downy throats

Of little sleeping birds,

The breeze-borne scent of mignonette,

That in the garden grows,

Where, strung like pearls, the dew is wet

Upon the briar-rose,

These things it is, whose voices I

Have sought for overlong;

Yet still their cunning tones defy

The artifice of song.

TO THE “WINGED VICTORY OF

SAMOTHRACE”

THOU wonder of the warrior prow,

Supreme, immortal Victory!

Before thy majesty I bow

And all my soul flames forth to thee!

Within the shadow of thy wings

A thousand voices sound for me;

In far, tumultuous murmurings,

I catch the echo of the sea;

The salty surge that rolls more near,

Till loud and clear

In mighty thunder tones I hear

The rush of old Ægean tides,

The bright, white waves that from the shore

Sweep seaward with unceasing roar;

In dawning skies the day-star guides,

Across the surf the seabirds call,

Whilst white and tall

With swift sails swelling over all,

The shield-hung warship rides.

And like the heaven-born dreams that soar

From hero spirits, eagle-wise,

And urge to deeds of great emprise

And fly before

The eager, throbbing hearts that know

No goal but victory, even so,

Above the restless breakers’ roar,

Upon the high cliff evermore

Thou standest with bright wings outspread,

In all thy fresh-wrought godlihead,

Beloved of the conqueror!

And as I gaze I seem to trace

The features of thy fearless face,

The matchless marvel of its grace

That like a star

Across the seas of Samothrace

Shone forth afar;

I hear the southern winds intone

Whilst backward blown

Thy trailing garments, fluttering

From out the slender girdle, cling

About thy limbs and so confess

Their lines of perfect loveliness;

Then suddenly o’er everything

Great shouts and martial echoes ring!

I see thee, storm-like, rushing past

Thy hand upon the carven mast,

And harken whilst thy proud lips fling

The loud, triumphal trumpet blast!

O glorious image! what if time

Hath smitten with ungentle touch

Thy perfect beauty? Still sublime

Thou art a conqueror, and still

All men unite to name thee such!

Before thee all my pulses thrill,

Old hopes and dreams awake in me;

O Victory,

Lead, lead but thou mine eager will,

I follow fast and far until

Some day my ship shall harbor thee!

AS TO THE SUMMER AIR THE ROSE

AS to the summer air the rose

Pours forth her perfume all the day,

For every careless wind that blows

To scatter far away,

So gives my heart to thee the rare

Fine fragrance of its sweetest thought,

And thou art heedless as the air

Whereto the rose is naught!

A WOOD FANCY

THE mandrakes lift, like little mosques,

Their domes between the vines,

And butterflies for worshipers

Are flocking to their shrines.

And from tall, tapering mullein towers

And minarets of green,

The honey-bee muezzins drone

To bloodroot buds between,

That pilgrim-wise along the road

Come trooping to the light,

In pale green caftans closely wound

And turbans spotless white.

While all the way with budding things

Is tufted thicker than

The praying mats the Persian weaves

In streets of Ispahan.

And listen! with a lordly note

Like joyous burst of drums,

In gorgeous gown of gold and black

The oriole sultan comes!

THE THRUSH

THE creamy dogwood branches,

The rosy redbud trees,

The drifts of sweet wild-plum bloom

O’erhung by honey bees,

The gleaming buckeye blossoms

The south wind blew apart,

Oh, all the woods awaking,

They overfilled my heart!

Then clear, from out a thicket,

There rang that golden note

That flutes from none but only

The tawny thrush’s throat;

So charged with all sweet secrets

The April has to tell,

I bowed my head and harkened,

Enchanted by its spell.

Till presently that magic

Heart-melting melody

Drew all my soul to meet it

In sudden ecstasy.

My spirit found its pinions

In blessed bird-like birth,

And knew the joyous passion

That thrilled through all the earth.

The while the thrush was singing,

I heard the violets stir,

And through the dreamy woodlands

The breaking buds confer;

I half divined the glories

Of all the springs to be,

—When, O, the song was silent!

The thrush had flown, ah me!

MONTEZUMA

ON a lofty mountain summit

In a tawny, desert land,

Lo, a mighty human profile,

But not hewn by human hand;

In the living rock forever

Looming dark, majestic, grand.

O’er its outline, heaven fronting,

When the dawn’s first radiance streams

With its rosy touch, and tender,

Then this face of granite seems

As a sleeper’s unawakened

From the thrall of peaceful dreams.

But when down the western heavens

Sinks the setting sun, blood-red,

Then the mountain mists that mantle

Cover close that quiet head,

As men draw a pall of purple

Round about their kingly dead.

And the stars, like lighted tapers,

Flicker forth in golden rows

From the heaven’s holy altar,

Whilst the night-wind as it blows

Seems to chant a solemn requiem

For the passing soul’s repose.

Head of royal Montezuma,

So the ancient legends tell;

Montezuma, granite shrouded

By some great enchanter’s spell,

Lying lordly by the borders

Of the land he loved so well.

But in silence unrevealing

Still that calm face fronts the sky;

Heeding neither tears nor laughter,

Nor if sun or storm go by;

Keeping still its primal counsel,

In repose, serene and high.

BETWEEN SEASONS

THE cherry trees are haunted

By hordes of robber jays,

And warmer winds are fanning

The poppies to a blaze.

And loosed in fitful flurries,

The sweet syringas fall,

To lie like little snow-drifts

Against the garden wall.

Upon the laden lattice,

In softly rounding shapes,

A wealth of tiny clusters

Are growing into grapes.

Heigho! a drowsy shimmer

Enfolds the sunny hours;

And humming-birds are hidden

In scarlet trumpet-flowers.

The tenderness of springtime

Is almost overpast;

But O, the gracious summer,

It comes, it comes at last!

A LITTLE LOVE SONG

MY heart was like a sunless, cold,

Unlovely land of ice and snow,

Wherein no blessed buds unfold,

Nor singing waters flow.

Then all at once the April skies

Laughed in your look, and at that hour

My spirit melted, torrent-wise,

My life broke into flower!

O dearest heart, I had not guessed

What marvel of immortal seeds

Lay hidden deep within my breast,

Beneath its barren weeds!

But now I know, but now I know

The glory of the flower of love,

The joyous splendor of its glow,

The subtile pain thereof!

JUNE

HIGH overhead,

By summer breezes sped,

From every latest burgeoned bough

The last, spring petals fall;

And red, red, red,

Along the garden bed,

The poppy plants are holding now

Their crimson carnival.

Clear, sweet, and strong,

I hear the robin’s song,

And catch the merry caroling

Of some bold bobolink;

And phlox flowers throng

The garden ways along,

While peonies and roses bring

Their pageantries of pink.

White, gold, and green,

The lily spires are seen,

And hollyhocks, in stately rows,

With tufted buds are set;

Tall, in between,

The growing sunflowers lean,

And thick the sweet alyssum shows

Among the mignonette.

Ho! truant May!

Have you, then, gone astray,

Unwitting that in realms of June

Return were no avail?

Ah, well-a-day!

So wings the spring away;

The summer’s ever oversoon,

But June, sweet June, all hail!

A SONG OF THOUGHT

O, THE ships have sails for the swelling gales,

The falcon flies in the wake of the wind,

In the speed of the steed of the Bedouin breed

The blood leaps high to the hoof-beats’ lead,

As the leagues are left behind.

But what care I

For the birds that fly,

Or all the vessels that sail the sea;

The blasts that blow

Till the trees bend low,

Or the barbs of Araby!

I spring to birth with the dust of earth,

Yet span the heaven from pole to pole;

Or flashing far as the farthermost star,

I know no barrier, bound nor bar

To hold from my boldest goal.

The storm’s red spark

As it cleaves the dark,

With my viewless wings it can not keep pace;

More fleet than light

My measureless flight

To the starless ends of space!

IN THE MOONLIGHT

THE moonbeams filter softly through

The leaves upon the linden tree;

And as I sit alone, dear heart,

My spirit yearns for thee!

Yet in some gracious-wise to-night

We do not seem far worlds apart;

I reach my empty arms and dream

I fold thee to my heart.

I close my brimming eyes, and see

The strange, sweet beauty of thy smile,

And fancy that our palms are met

In loving clasp the while.

In soft, clear tones, I seem to hear

The long-hushed voice I loved so well;

—I tremble, lest a breath should break

This moment’s happy spell!

O brother mine, could it be true

Thine own dear presence hovers near

To comfort with this heavenly peace

Thy little sister here?

BINDWEED

ALONG the lane I idly pass

Unheeding where the footpath goes,

And loiter through the ripe wild-grass

That down the open roadway grows

In feathery, tall tufts that rise

In filmy tangles, misty-wise;

The grass that when the south wind blows,

Shines out and shows

Shot through with silver lights and rose,

And tiny gold and violet seeds

That quiver off each gleaming stem

And powder all the wayside weeds,

And like a glory cover them.

With eager palms I gently press

Soft sheaves of it against my lips

In sheer delight; and so caress

And fondle with light finger-tips,

And watch its beauty when the bright,

Clear spears of light

Pierce through its slender leaves and smite

Their rose and purple, till my sight

Is dazzled with its loveliness!

In verdant nets along the way

The tendrils of a wild-grape vine

Through elder thickets intertwine;

And poising lightly on a spray

Of fruited bramble stems where shine

Close clustering berries, red as wine,

A little thistle-bird, still gay

In April’s yellow plumage, clings

With airy grace, and slowly swings,

And lifts his wings

In dainty, drowsy flutterings;

They flicker like bright flakes of gold,

And fan his body, small and slim,

While lovingly the winds enfold

And summer’s heart broods over him.

The sky is softer than the blue

Of cornflower buds beneath the dew;

And down below

Upon the marshy meadow swales

The bindweed weaves its rosy veils

Where thick the blowing rushes grow

Among the tasseled reeds and rue;

And up between the mossy rails

It lightly climbs, and clambers through

The growing corn, and barley, too,

And winds the fallow weeds and trails

Along the creek where cowslips grew.

O lavish stems, that fondly fling

Close clasp about the earth, and cling

In wreaths of fragrant flowering,

Ev’n as ye do

To that dear soil wherefrom ye spring,

So does my love cleave thereunto!

And so my full heart-blossoms bind

The bright midsummer fields, and find

Sweet fellowships with everything!

THE SUMMER SHOWER

THE air is shot with spangling drops,

But heedless of the rain

The sun laughs, through a silver veil,

Upon the golden grain.

And lightly arching up the east

In faintly penciled lines,

That throb and flush to tinted bars,

A double rainbow shines.

It seems to touch the fragrant earth,

Till, tangled in the breeze,

It winds a film of irised light

About the distant trees.

In frothy clusters down the road

The blooming elders lean,

With dripping buds that shine like pearls

Within a sea of green.

And heaped around them, pink as shells,

The roses are in flower,

While earth and sky are freshly keyed

To sweetness by the shower.

AT NIGHT

COME, draw more near! Clasp hands with me!

Ah close, and closer still!

The night spreads to infinity!

And through my heart a sudden chill,

—I pray loose not your loving hold!—

A fear, a loneliness untold

Smites sharply, till mine eyes o’erfill!

Nor have I strength nor stress of will

To set my spirit free.

The cold, the darkness, and the dread

Immensity of space,

The great, wan moon, whose ghostly face

For ages has been dead,

The weird lights wheeling overhead,

The unknown worlds that onward roll,

In endless wanderings ever led,

That find no goal,

The spectral mists that overspread

With pallid light the lesser stars,

The lurid glow that glimmers red

Across the front of Mars,

—O dearest heart, when all is said,

I am afraid! and from the whole

Wide waste of worlds I hide my sight,

And from the boundless night!

The ancient mystery of the skies,

Their silent depths from pole to pole,

The void, the vastness terrifies!

—O, let me rather search your eyes,

And with your sweet, warm touch disperse

This terror of the universe

That strikes into my soul!

THE HOME FIELDS

THE fields are full of sunlight,

And leafy golden-green,

And misty purple shadows

Are flitting in between;

The flaky elder flowers

Are drenched with honey-dew,

And all the distant woodlands

Stand veiled in tender blue.

Half seen between green thickets

Of grape-vine and wild rose,

In twinkling swirls of silver

The lazy river flows;

While down the grassy roadside

The milkweed balls are bright,

And waving prince’s-feather

Is tipped with snowy white.

Ah, ever-dearest home-land,

’Tis here my spirit sings!

And as my heart caresses

The sweet, familiar things,

Such rare midsummer magic

Distills through all the air,

I think these fields are fairer

Than any anywhere!

SYMPATHY

TO-NIGHT a little child lies dead;

I never saw its face;

I try to fancy now instead

Its lines of baby grace.

And for the sake of her who weeps

These lonely watches through

So wakefully my spirit keeps

A weary vigil, too.

A thousand thoughts appeal to me

In close-besieging crowd;

But through them all I only see

A little, snow-white shroud.

Nor may I set dull grief at naught,

However I am fain;

Since when the heart-strings are distraught,

The will must strive in vain.

Ah me! there breaks the dawning sun,

In golden light serene;

Yet still I mourn this little one,

Whom I have never seen!

IN SUMMER DEEPS

THROUGH sunny spaces overhead

A gray hawk’s lazy pinions spread,

And poppies open wide and red

Where golden harvests grew.

In rosy wreaths upon the swales

And fallow fields the bindweed trails,

And late-sown buckwheat swiftly pales

To blossoming anew.

The pond within the pasture land

Reflects the cattle as they stand

In depths of dipping sedges and

Of tangled meadow-rue.

In silver splashes through the green,

Fine, filmy spider-webs are seen,

And crumpled cockle-flowers between

Are rifts of tender blue.

On stately stalks of standing corn

A wealth of cresting plumes are borne,

And tawny tasseled tufts adorn

The ripened barley, too.

So, steeping nature far and wide,

Deep sweeps the flood of summer-tide,

Till all things that therein abide

Are richly tinctured through.

SONG

O, FRESH from off the ocean

The salt wind riots through

The fragrant fern and bay-leaves

And dripping honey-dew.

The morning’s on the moorland,

And flashing, far away,

I glimpse the foam-white seagulls

And feathers of the spray.

O hasten! let us hasten!

The tide sings up the sand

The song my heart has harkened

Across long leagues of land.

So far, far have I journeyed,

Such weary ways, O sea!

Breathe, breathe me breath of life now,

And steep the soul of me!

IMPATIENT

SOME day, when summer’s overpast,

And loosed by frost, in gold and brown

These greenly clinging leaves drift down,

When shrill winds hush

The robin red-breast and the thrush,

When all the skies are overcast

With racks of rain, so chill and gray

Not any burgeoning may be,—

Some day,

Across far foreign lands and vast

Unbounded spaces of the sea,

So homeward, homeward, journeying fast,

At last

She will come back to me!

I reckon up, in daily sum,

The time until that scarlet date;

I think the fall will never come,

So wearily I wait!

The hours seem leaguing to belate

The days, that never crept so slow;

And yet,

I used to love the summer so!

But now my heart may only fret

And pray for it to go.

And yearning so, with lashes wet,

I half forget

The greenery on every bough,

How red the poppies are, and how

Amid the tufted mignonette

The scented south-winds gently blow;

I heed them not,—I only know

Time never seemed so long as now!

I search the azure skies in vain,

No hint of autumn rain!

No hint of fall from bluebirds, nor

Green fields of growing grain.

Then idly reckoning, as before,

I strive anew to make less far

That glad date on the calendar;

To number less the days that are,

The changes fixed for sun and star,

The moons that yet must wax and wane;

Thus evermore

With fresh impatience, o’er and o’er,

I count the hours;—yet still am fain

To tell them over once again.

O hasten, hasten, autumn days!

Sear swift this dewy, summer green!

I am grown weary with delays;

Speed! Speed!

Bring bitter winds and chill, nor heed

The mellow sweets between!

What if the dead leaves strew the ways,

And southward all the songs take wing?

Despite all cheerless frosts that be,

My eager heart awaits the spring,

So knowing she will surely bring

The birds and May to me.

RAIN ON THE RIVER

THE skies are gray, where far and wide,

Beyond the water-willows,

The marshes spread their emerald tide

Of blossom-crested billows.

And on the vague horizon’s rim,

In vaporous purple masses,

The distant woods show soft and dim

Across the lush, green grasses.

An east wind stirs the ivory balls

Upon the button-bushes;

And hark! a hidden rain-bird calls

From out the blowing rushes.

Within the water, yonder spray

Of rosy mallow flowers

Turns faint and pale, till not more gray

The cloudy heaven lowers.

And all the birches’ tender green

An ashen hue is growing;

While mottled with a silver sheen

The ruffled waves are flowing.

Then softly through the forest leaves,

That turn, and toss, and quiver,

The rain, with murmurous cadence, weaves

A roundel in the river.

It dots the waves with dancing pearls,

It gleams, and streams, and twinkles;

It sweeps and sinks in silvery swirls,

And rings, and sings, and tinkles.

The clustering sedges dip and sway,

Till, after fitful failing,

The sun bursts gaily through the gray,

And craggy clouds are sailing

Where, southward, in a brilliant sky,

As light as any feather,

The little moon curves white and high,

In token of fair weather.

OVER THE SIERRA

FROM out the depths of the abyss,

Faint echoes of a torrent’s roar

O’er crags whence lordly eagles soar

To poise above the precipice.

A dizzy pathway, sheer and steep;

A startled catching of the breath;

And, bearing menaces of death,

A loosened snow-drift’s sudden sweep!

Then, blown from out the upper sky,

Keen, fitful gusts of icy air,

So light, so tenuous and rare,

The heart leaps strangely swift thereby.

The white moon floating in the calm

Still ether space, so near, it seems,

To grasp his eager childhood dreams,

One need but thither reach his palm.

A sense of majesties and mights,

An exaltation born of these;

—The summit’s awful silences;

A glimpse of Godhead from the heights!

ON THE PRAIRIE

ACROSS the dewy prairie

The morning wind is borne,

Beyond the new-mown hayfields,

And through the tasseled corn.

Upon the silver-maples

It lifts the swinging leaves,

And steals a subtile sweetness

From rows of golden sheaves.

Within the sunny orchard

The harvest apples fall,

While from the tossing branches

The saucy jay-birds call.

In crinkled, fringy clusters

The scarlet poppies burn,

Where, softly opening, eastward

The yellow sunflowers turn.

And nibbling in the garden,

Between the cherry trees,

I see a robber rabbit

Among the pink sweet-peas.

While with a fitful fanning,

The lazy wind-mill swings,

About the bloomy peaches

A robin redbreast sings.

And in the far horizon

There dwells such tender hue,

These azure cornflower blossoms

Are not so sweet and blue.

BY THE KANKAKEE

BENEATH the forest trees I lie,

And watch the deep blue summer sky,

And count the white cranes floating by

On level wings;

And in the undergrowth I hear

A bittern softly treading near,

While through the willows, sweet and clear,

A wood-thrush sings.

And flashing, plashing, close to me,

With murmurous, melting melody,

The swirling, crystal Kankakee

Flows deep and swift

Through liquid tints and tones untold

Of topaz, turquoise, bronze and gold,

That in its lucent depths unfold

And drift, and sift,

Till down among the pearly shells

A wealth of changeful color dwells;

And like a string of silver bells

The ripples ring

Through trailing water-weeds that raise

Their tangled, yellow blossom-sprays

Where in a green and golden maze

Tall rushes swing.

And far across the glassy tide,

The marshes shimmer, low and wide,

Where birds and bees and wild things hide

In reedy grass

Whose wavering, evanescent hues

Pale, darken, change, and interfuse,

Till my enchanted senses lose

All things that pass,

And only feel an exquisite

Glad throb of light and life complete;

While like some subtile essence sweet,

The wilderness,

The perfumes warm of wave and wood

The silence of the solitude,

All merge and mingle in my mood,

Till half I guess

The secrets that the winds impart,

And draw so near to nature’s heart

I feel her inmost pulses start;

While happily

I sink upon her fragrant breast,

Like yonder thrush within its nest,

And deep, entrancing sense of rest

Steals over me.

THE FISHER FOLK

I KNOW a little village

Where fisher folk abide;

The dark pine woods behind it,

The southern sea beside.

There rosy pink crape-myrtles

In every dooryard grow,

And through the glossy live-oaks

The salt sea breezes blow.

At break of day the fishers

Sail out to sea to reap

The harvest that they sowed not,

The harvest of the deep.

Then, when their nets are emptied,

They set their sails for land,

To heap the shining fishes

Upon the shining sand.

Where little barefoot children

Await them, eager-eyed,

And play the while with sea-shells

Cast upward by the tide.

And all seem so content there,

From worldly care so free,

I would that I could find it,

This secret of the sea!

THE CACTUS LAND

LAND of strange, unearthly beauty,

Tawny Desert, over me

Thou hast cast the deep enchantment

Of some subtile sorcery!

These thine endless barren reaches

Where no fruitful harvests grow,

Unto some bring nameless heartache;

But to me thou dost not so!

Here, where all the air seems newly

From the springs of life distilled,

Every breath is like a beaker

With rare, sparkling rapture filled!

And my heart exults and glories

In the strange, compelling power

Of enchanting, changeful color,

That is thy supremest dower.

Joy to me thine ever cloudless

Sky of purest turquoise hue,

And thy rosy mountain ranges

Wrapped in pale, translucent blue.

Beautiful the rainbow ether

Shifting, shimmering evermore,

In diaphanous, dazzling splendors

Over all thy boundless floor,

Where the low-boughed silver sage-bush

Softly tufts the tawny land,

And the tropic Spanish bayonet

Clusters tall on every hand.

While for leagues and leagues the cactus,

Child of sun and sand and bare

Rainless regions, lifts its columns

Through the rare, transparent air.

Wild and splendid in thy freedom,

Unsubdued as is the sea,

From the first, O lordly Desert,

Thou hast drawn my heart to thee!

Desolate thou art, and silent,

Barren both of fruit and flower;

Yet I love thine arid grandeur

That defies man’s utmost power!

THE LAST SURVIVOR FROM THE

LIFE-BOAT

BENEATH his pillow, hid away

From careless sight, the nurses say,

And safe from any stranger’s view,

As miser might some treasure rare,

So does he guard, with jealous care,

A baby’s shoe.

And evermore by day and night,

With burning eyeballs fever-bright,

This wan survivor of the sea

Scans each blank, closing wall in turn,

In dim endeavor to discern

If sail there be.

And then the weary sigh that slips

Suspiring from those parching lips

No heart may hear nor bleed therefor!

As, with hot tears that fall like rain,

He soothes a dying baby’s pain

And o’er and o’er

Croons snatches of soft lullabies

To empty arms held cradle-wise.

—O human heart-break, love and grief!

God pity him in his distress,

Ev’n as the sea was pitiless

Beyond belief!

God comfort, as with straining breath,

Unheeding either life or death,

Yet still with faint unwitting smile,

His fingers fondly seek and fold

The little sea-stained shoe, and hold

And stroke the while.

THE CASCADE RAVINE

FROM off the traveled road that lay

Between wide fields of wheat and corn,

An old gate, gray and weather-worn,

Led down a shady woodland way.

One scarce might trace the narrow path,

So green it was and overgrown

With springtime’s seeded aftermath;

Tall grasses that had never known

The mower’s scythe or sickle’s scath,

And rosy mayweed lightly sown

Where’er the summer winds had blown;

And all their tangled stems the red

Sweet clover blossoms overspread.

Near by, through scented, leafy veils

Of wreathing vines, and dewy, dense

Green underwood, a brood of quails

Sped swiftly past the ragged rails

That tilted off a mossy fence;

And over it, on airy wing,

A robin paused in glad content

Where budding elder-bushes leant

And brambles clambered flowering.

Then, suddenly, a low, sweet sound

Rose, faintly quivering on the breeze,

And all that blossom-studded ground

Seemed charged with murmurous mysteries!

As if all rarest forest keys

In dreamful chords divinely blent,

Sang forth from some sweet instrument;

While pulsing through, with rhythmic beat,

In slumberous melodies there went

The soft susurrus of the trees,

The wind that wandered through the wheat,

And all the changeful strains of these.

And as I listened, marveling

Where those light, liquid tones might be,

Forgetting all and everything

Save that enchanting minstrelsy,

I wandered slowly through the wood,

Till all at once the parted green

Revealed its secret, for I stood

Upon the verge of a ravine

Wherein the sunbeams broke between

Tall rustling hemlock boughs, and bright

As burnished silver in the light,

A tiny stream ran tinkling through,

While hidden somewhere out of sight,

A little spring made music, too.

The shining water slipped and slipped

Adown the mossy rocks, and dripped

From off fine fringing ferns, in drops

Of endless threaded pearls that tipped

The tasseled sedge and alder tops

With flickering light,—and then it sipped

A drowsy draught of sun, and dipped

Beneath small clustering buds, and hid

Among lush marigolds, and slid

Between tall serried ranks of reeds,

And stroked their little leaves and lipped

The flower-spangled jewel-weeds;

Then, speeding suddenly amid

Faint shimmering spray, it lightly tripped

Across white pebbly sand, and stripped

The marsh flowers’ gold, and fled, half seen,

A splash of silver through the green.

And all the while that music sweet

Kept softly murmuring at my feet,

As down the rocks in ceaseless streams

The limpid cascades poured, and still

The slumberous light in yellow beams

Bathed the green hemlock boughs,—until

I seemed to lose all waking will,

And all my soul was lulled to dreams;

Wherethrough there floated, drowsy-wise,

Bright glints of bird-wings, gracious gleams

Of tender, sunlit summer skies,

And fleet, sweet visions of the rare

Deep, shadowy hearts the forests bear.

FOREBODING

THE scarlet briars trailed across

The grave I journeyed far to see;

Upon the stone, half hid in moss,

“Prepare for death, and follow me.”

The birds flew southward down the sky;

Upon a golden linden tree

The leaves that fluttered seemed to sigh,

“Prepare for death, and follow me.”

My father’s father slept below

So dreamless deep and silently,

I spelled the message soft and slow,

“Prepare for death, and follow me.”

—Ah me! ’twas years ago the birds

Fled swift o’er that far golden tree;

And wherefore now come back these words,

“Prepare for death, and follow me”?

IN LATE SEPTEMBER

AMONG the hardy marigolds

The spicy gillyflower unfolds,

And in the elm a catbird scolds

With saucy, outspread wings;

To mellow sweets the pippins speed,

The sunflower disks are brown with seed,

And round about them finches feed

In clinging, yellow rings.

The latest poppy fires are dead,

But bright as blossoms overhead

In shining sheaves of bronze and red,

The frost-tipped pear leaves show;

While from their branches blackbirds sing

Or break to noisy chattering;

And slender silken cobwebs string

The tall grass down below.

Along the uplands, faintly seen

Across the fallow fields between,

The winter wheat grows bravely green

Despite the coming cold;

And studding all the stubbled ground

In tasseled shocks the corn is bound,

The ripened ears heaped close around

In piles of purest gold.

To smoky wreaths along the ways

The newly kindled brush-heaps blaze,

And filmy veils of purple haze

Mesh all the amber air;

Among the fleeces of the sheep

The yellow sunbeams softly creep,

And sweet contentment, wide and deep,

Rests gently everywhere.

SUNNY NOON

THE rose-trees and the barberries

Are strung with coral beads;

And fitful breezes lightly sift

The ripened poppy-seeds.

Still, heedless of the nipping frost,

Along the garden bed

The white and purple gillyflowers

Their spicy fragrance shed.

And weaving richest tapestries

Upon the lattice frame,

The woodbine laces in and out

In gold, and rose, and flame.

Along the wall the grapevines trace

Their brown and twisted frets,

And all the trailing clematis

Is hung with soft aigrettes.

Through fringes that the larches wave

The sky shows fair and blue,

And somewhere, from beneath the eaves,

I hear the pigeons coo.

The glory of the noonday sun

Pervades the dreamy air,

And the sweet heart of beauty throbs

In music everywhere.

THE GOLDEN WEDDING

MORE sweet than all the buds that blow

Where summer’s rarest roses grow,

More splendid than white lily spires,

Or shining, scarlet poppy fires,

Love’s fragrant flower,—even so,

The blossom of the heart’s desires.

And richer than all fields enfold

Or all earth’s burdened branches hold,

Than any autumn vintage red,

Or yellow sheaves new harvested,

Love’s ripened fruit of mellow gold,

The sum of life, when all is said.

EARLY NOVEMBER

O THE sweetness of the jangle

Of the sheep-bells, in the tangle

Of the wild witch-hazel bushes and the spreading red-bud trees!

—Ah, the silence when it ceases!

But the beauty of the fleeces,

And the soft eyes peering at me through the woodbine lattices!

And beyond them, and the network

Of the dogwood, and the fretwork

Of the interlacing grapevines, and across the meadow land,

I can see the color showing

Where the winter-wheat is growing,

With the corn encamped about it like a plumed protecting band.

While among the many-seeded

Tufts of russet weeds, unheeded,

Truant ducks go idly twinkling through the yellow stubble-field;

Their white feathers like the glosses

Of the shining silver bosses

That adorn the tawny luster of an olden golden shield.

In long loops from off the hedges,

Trailing downward to the edges

Of the wayside grass and clover-leaves, fine cobweb threads are wound;

Fairy clues that lead my eager

Errant fancy to beleaguer

Some concealed, enchanted chamber in the richly covered ground.

Till the sun begins the lighting

Of his western fires, that smiting

Through the orchard boughs are splintered into spears of ruddy flame;

An irradiating splendor

That transfigures all the slender

Little leafless twigs and branches with a glory without name!

O, I know the year is going!

Neither reaping-time nor sowing

Will restore the tender beauty of its blossoms that are dead:

Yet I cherish all their sweetness

In the ripeness and completeness

Of the gold and crimson fruitage that my heart has harvested.

WHEREFORE WINGS?

HEIGHO, sparrow! Reckless of the rain;

When chill the cheerless wind grows,

Chirping might and main!

Is it naught, then, when the rose

Blows again?

Beating, sleeting on your draggled coat!

Surely, ’tis enough to drown

Any happy note

Nestling in that downy brown

Little throat.

Ah me, sparrow! Had I but your power,

Think you in the freezing sleet

I would waste an hour?

—I’d sing my sweetest to a sweet

Orange flower!

WINTRY TINTS

THE sky is like an opal,

And the horizon’s ring

Is yellow, like a band of gold,

To hold so rich a thing.

The wheat-fields are as fleecy

As any cloud that blows,

But tawny tufts of standing corn

Prick lightly through the snows.

Beside the drift-bound wind-mill

A pearly shadow plays

In tones of tender violet,

And vague, elusive grays.

And tinged with quiet olive

The hedges fine and bare,

Whose thorny masses down the road

An alien softness wear.

O, subtile chords of color

Are fingered by the frost!

Though touched and tuned to colder key,

No grace of earth is lost.

For see! a deep red ruby

The opal heaven grows,

And yonder pool of ice is one

Great golden-hearted rose!

THE PERFECT FRIENDSHIP

THERE is a garden so divinely fair

That in its magic bound, surpassing sweet,

The golden buds, so Persian songs repeat,

Spring forth immortal in enchanted air;

But, ah, a close there is, more heavenly rare,

Where, cherished warm within the heart’s retreat,

Love’s whitest lilies burgeon to complete

And fragrant flowering lovely past compare.

O dearest friend, such lilies have I found

Within my heart, undreamed-of but for thee!

Nor any fabled buds of genie’s ground

Are sweeter in their immortality;

When thou art near, like notes of happy birds,

My thoughts uprise in songs that need no words.

JANUARY THAW

THE brook has broken through its glass,

And where the snows were drifted

Round tangled blades of last year’s grass,

The yellow sun is sifted.

Uncovered by the melting night

And warm, deceiving day-time,

The myrtle bed is green and bright

As in the midst of Maytime!

I almost fancy that I hear

The hum of bees in clover,

And from the maples, glad and clear,

The first red-robin lover.

A mock spring laughs in mocking skies,

(O little buds, be wary!)

And masking in sweet April’s guise

The youthful year makes merry.

MORNING ON THE MOUNTAIN

UPON the gray crags, steep and sheer,

The columbines’ gold tassels swing,

And wind-flowers cling,

Where, lightly poised, the mountain deer

Drink in the dewy atmosphere

In long, deep draughts of sun and spring;

From haunts that know no hunter’s snare

The hermit-thrush and wood-dove wing,

Whilst through green openings squirrels fare

And here and there

Great, silvery moths go fluttering.

Along the valley, in a trail

Of purple light, the mist clouds sail,

And, soft and pale

As wreaths of newly risen smoke,

They wrap the red-wood trees and veil

The topmost crests of pine and oak,

And balsam boughs and juniper

Wherethrough the west winds faintly stir

The underwood, and gently stroke

The tall young ferns, and smooth the fur

Of countless happy forest-folk.

Wild little hearts, that throb unknown

Save to the fondling winds alone,

Bright eyes, that sparkle free of fear,

O earth is sweet, and life is dear!

Here in these forests, still your own,

In primal peace, this many a year

God keep you here!

Here where across the waking lands

Young willows wave their bloomy wands,

Whilst up the heights and far away

The pine trees climb in singing bands

And feathery spruces surge and sway

And clap their cones, like little hands,

For gladness of the day!

Up, up, they clamber on until

The tenuous air smites keen and chill,

And far winds blow

From leagues of everlasting snow;

And then the mountain buds, more bold,

Their sheaths unfold

And light their golden fires and glow

With flame unquenched by frost or cold.

Whilst ever o’er them, shimmering high

Against the sky,

A glittering, crystal radiance streams,

Wherein the mountain floats and gleams

Through frosty fleeces, till it seems

That some great morning star, instead

Of earth, hangs trembling overhead,

A dream of all most lovely dreams!

An airy miracle, overspread

With veils of silvery tissue spun

Of ice and mist and snow and sun.

A dazzle of all lights in one!

I watch it till, tall towering there

Through brightening air,

Such special splendor does it wear

It seems the sun’s own citadel,

At sight whereof my lips grow dumb

With joy I find no voice to tell;

So stricken silent, as with some

Deep gladness of o’ermastering spell;

Nor any song of mine may dare

To follow where

The summit’s utmost radiant peak,

Bright as God’s chosen cherubim,

Soars through the smiling sky to seek

And fearless front the face of Him.

THE LITTLE SISTER

ALONG the street a tiny pair

Of childish figures lately went;

The boy’s face wore a fearless air,

The little sister’s sweet content.

He closely clasped her chubby hand,

And led her through the throng, while she

Seemed perfectly to understand

He would protect her loyally.

And as I watched them pass from sight,

My heart began to ache, for so

I held my brother’s fingers tight

And toddled down the long ago.

Then all at once, beyond control,

The tears uprose in blinding rain,

Such hopeless yearning stirred my soul

To lay my hand in his again!

THE SEA-GARDENS OF SANTA CATALINA

LIGHTLY let the boat go drifting,

Neither hand nor oar uplifting,

Let no motion fret the ocean, and no sail be now unfurled;

Stranger than Aladdin’s story,

Lo, the dream-surpassing glory

And the marvel unimagined of the limpid underworld!

Gaze within the magic mirror

Of the water, crystal clearer

Than the gleaming glass enchanted, made by Merlin’s sorcery

And behold the secrets hidden

Through the ages, till unbidden

Sons of men came sailing, sailing down the blue Pacific sea.

See the pearl-encrusted portals

Of the caverns, wherein mortals

Dare not pierce with earthly vision, dare not fare with feet profane;

Coral-columned halls with golden

Thrones in emerald deeps withholden,

Lit with sparkling amber splendor, where the merry mermen reign.

See the long kelp banners flying

From their gardens underlying

All the rare, transparent surface of this sunny, southern sea;

Grasses, shot with silver spangles,

Wreathed and caught in starry tangles

Of the purple ocean-pansy and the fringed anemone.

And the brilliant sea-weeds scattered

Like a gay mosaic shattered

In a million shining fragments over all the ocean floor;

While the bright-hued fish go darting

In swift journeys, meeting, parting,

Weaving gold and scarlet patterns through the water evermore.

Through the light that throbs and quivers

Down the depths, and breaks and shivers

Into splintered flakes of brightness, that so melt and interfuse

Into all such strangest ranges

Of translucent color changes,

That the eye is thrilled, bewildered, with their rare enchanting hues.

—Ah, would thus upon the gleaming

Southern sea, in happy dreaming,

We might drift and drift forever! never shoreward guide the keel!

Azure skies, forever smiling,

Into visions sweet beguiling,

And beneath our boat the splendor of those rosy dreams made real!

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

Original spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been kept unchanged.

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Table of Contents

Among the Trees Again

CONTENTS

AMONG THE TREES AGAIN

THE REDBIRD

THE WISHING-SPRING

APRIL MORNING

ON HEARING THE BALLAD “ALLEN PERCY”

MY LITTLE MASTER

THE NORTHMEN’S SONG OF THE POLE

IN THE MISSION GARDEN, SAN GABRIEL

DREAM ECHOES

APRIL CONTRADICTIONS

A PLEA

SEA-DREAMS

IDEALS

TO THE “WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE”

AS TO THE SUMMER AIR THE ROSE

A WOOD FANCY

THE THRUSH

MONTEZUMA

BETWEEN SEASONS

A LITTLE LOVE SONG

JUNE

A SONG OF THOUGHT

IN THE MOONLIGHT

BINDWEED

THE SUMMER SHOWER

AT NIGHT

THE HOME FIELDS

SYMPATHY

IN SUMMER DEEPS

SONG

IMPATIENT

RAIN ON THE RIVER

OVER THE SIERRA

ON THE PRAIRIE

THE FISHER FOLK

THE CACTUS LAND

THE LAST SURVIVOR FROM THE LIFE-BOAT

THE CASCADE RAVINE

FOREBODING

IN LATE SEPTEMBER

SUNNY NOON

THE GOLDEN WEDDING

EARLY NOVEMBER

WHEREFORE WINGS?

WINTRY TINTS

THE PERFECT FRIENDSHIP

JANUARY THAW

MORNING ON THE MOUNTAIN

THE LITTLE SISTER

THE SEA-GARDENS OF SANTA CATALINA

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

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