The murky night hung dank and dark The Summer shower after; A distant dog’s staccato bark Disturbed the strollers’ laughter; The mournful whip-poor-will’s lament, The frogs’ and crickets’ chorus A weird, sepulchral feeling lent To meadow-lot and morass. A thousand insect-lanterns flashed Their phosphorescent signals Of living sparks that dot-and-dashed Out swift electric riddles; For scarcely was the eye upon A single tiny glowlight When wink, it flitted and was gone Like prankish imp on show-night! And while one guessed its next surprise Afar from where it dwindled A myriad others to the eyes All intercrossed and kindled Until the ghostly gloom became Illumined with manoeuvres As though of fairies fanning flame Within a park of lovers. And thus does fancy people night With fugitive creations Of phantom-folk whose fitful light Yet feeds our inspirations And teaches us there is no dark But fellowships the presence Of every soul that sheds its spark Of humble incandescence. BO-PEEPEverywhere I ramble In the ides of May, Through the boughs and bramble The wood-nymphs play. Where the sunshine dapples Shadows all a-creep Beneath the budding apples, Dances Bo-Peep. Over where the mosses Make a coverlet Which the Spring embosses With a green fret, From the long hibernal Dreaminess of sleep Wakes with dimples vernal Little Bo-Peep. Violets and bluets Mischievously peek; Monks like pigmy druids Play at hide-and-seek; O’er each stump a picket Spies with cunning deep, And in every thicket Beckons Bo-Peep. PEEP-OF-DAWNThe tallyho of slumber’s on The last relay of dreams; Posthaste it rides with ribbons drawn O’er curvetting gray teams. The wayside house just left behind Was Where-the-Cock-Crew Inn; The road ahead with rose is lined And known as Work-to-Win. Intoxicated senses sink In visions of delight; And Venus’ eye begins to wink Where it outrides the night. Sly fingers lift the window-shades, But ere espied are gone; And on the drowsy milking-maids Tiptoes the Peep-of-Dawn. Dame Nature in abandon lies With skirts in disarray, And overtaken with surprise Is kissed by stealthy Day; The coverts rub their eyes and wake, And dreaming Love anon Goes forth on Rosy Road to make A tryst with Peep-of-Dawn. THE RILLY RIVERThe cold and turbid flood of Spring Has melted to the Summer shallow, And now the vivid greeneries cling Along the margin lush and fallow, And where were sombre deeps and chills Are silver trills of rippling rills. The loiterer upon the bridge Which o’er the eddying river poises Salutes the island’s sandy ridge That reappears; the eye rejoices In all the old familiar frills And saucy spills of rippling rills. The rod and reel the rapture feel And from the boat take finny chances, But less for luck than with the keel To be a part of runic dances; For thus the river’s music thrills Like joy that fills the rippling rills. CHERRIESCherries! Cherries! Cherries! The robins are excited and delighted To change the fare at last; For ’twas bugs and grubs and slugs Over two months past. Now it’s cherries till the berries Ripen full and fast. Cherries! Cherries! Cherries! The robins are excited and affrighted; There’s a man up the tree In a big wig and rig That would scare a chickadee— But a robin—see him bobbin’ In a solemn colloquy! Cherries! Cherries! Cherries! The scare-crow is indicted and requited With a pocketful of eggs Baby-blue, with ’em too Gettin’ ready bill and legs For the Summer that’s a comer When the cherry-season begs. Cherries! Cherries! Cherries! The robins are excited and delighted— Not the redbreast but the kind That eclipse with cherry lips And are not a whit behind Robin Jerries stealin’ cherries When the dummy’s but a blind. A SNOWFLAKEMillion-needled star of hoar, Parachuting little kite Sailing by my cottage-door, Flurried, jostled, fairy-light— Whither, whither, whence and why Comest thou of crystal From the welkin, hasting by Like a lost epistle? Softly did the snowflake sigh “Read me as I rest awhile!” So I read the whence and why; For the snowflake is a smile, Melting Heaven-dew congealed Lest we miss its beauty, Love in miracle revealed On the wings of duty! THE BLIZZARDThe whited pumice of the storm Is over house and hill Or drifted into shroudlike form About the ruined mill. The fences hide beneath the drifts; The snowy terraces Ascend to where the hemlock lifts Its virgin-broidered dress. The trackless highway challenges The sweltered caravan Of traffic and in fastnesses Of chalk imprisons man. The wind-wolves howl at cottage-door Or down the chimney leap; The windows all are rimed with hoar Where frozen fingers creep. The house-frame groans at blast and frost Like quarry of the pack O’ertaken, but though torn and tossed Still stout of heart and back; Still stout of heart like us secure By ruddy fire warm, Too humbly thankful to be poor While sheltered from the storm. SUGARING OFFEssence of all that’s sweet, what joy To watch thy amber flow And sip thy nectar till it cloy Or waxen it on snow! What joy to watch the trickling veins Of our old maple-friend And know the vernal Odin reigns As heir of Winter’s end! Drink to the earnest of the Spring, The ichor of the bud, To all the rising hopes that sing Of life and loverhood! Drink to the sweetness in thee hid By softer airs distilled; Let Nature sugar off and bid Her kindlier cup be filled! THE CHRYSALISCome out of your Winter shell, old grub Of horns and crusty twist, And with your fellows elbows rub More like a humanist! A spiral armor’s very well For its eccentric curve, But not a gloomy hermit-cell Of cynical reserve. Come out of your Winter shell, old slug Of dormant sense and soul! You’re far too round and hard and smug; Your Summer self unroll And show you’ve got some nature left That sprouts an airy wing; The man of humus is bereft Who can’t respond to Spring. Come out of your Winter shell, old worm Of wrapped-up gossamer, If you would burst your scaly derm And let the spirit stir; For after all, for better things A man created is Than lying with imprisoned wings A half-dead chrysalis. WHEN I SURVEY’Tis midnight and I am in the country! The world is still and all the lights are out Save for the ones which stud the firmament With diamond clusters everywhere about. Like royal David pondering the Heaven I stand uncovered, torn and battle-spent And from my flocking meditations driven By spectral bears and lions; but not as he Victorious, for the raveners I smote Were modern pride and doubt which stalked my faith For its ewe-lamb of trust and by the throat Dragged it away from me to bleating death. My staff is broken and the scroll I read A thousand nights like this lies crumpled where I flung it as with fevered brow I fled In mocking disillusion and despair From burnt-out wicks still sputtering in the oil Of self-illumination with the quizz “What am I? What the infinite I Am?” God! If the answer were in spirit-toil Or as the echo of Whatever Is! The stars smile down on me undimmed and calm. My soul! Have I so many years been blind To all the glories wheeling o’er my head And starry with the challenge of my quest? Orion jewel-girdled and behind Coursing his dogs, in mighty combat strange With red-eyed Taurus! And the Charioteer Flashing toward the goal in full career! The thrice-immortal Twins the chase abreast, Cheering the race but keeping out of range Of Ursa’s long, lean paws where his huge frame Looms in the Polar Circle! Farther south The Lion’s crouching form, with gleaming eyes And shadowy mouth! The Plowman of the skies, Proud of Arcturus’ fame! And Hercules Setting his giant heel upon the fang Of the unwieldy Dragon; while beyond The Serpent’s Crown makes mockery of the deed! Far over by a handful of degrees Imperial Vega rides the horizon, Harped on by Lyra, as when morning sang The genesis of systems God-decreed. Already shines afar the Northern Cross Where else were only dreariness and dark, Like flaming symbol of a holy Cause Which bore its ensign up the Winter arc And more divinely glowed with sacred fire Than the tiaraed Lady of the Chair With dazzling looks, or than her daughter whom Impetuous Perseus, thinking her so fair, Delivered by the right of passion from The Beast with jaws of grossness open wide. Nor would I miss the Eagle, argus-eyed And swift on wings of night. What! Call this Night, With thousand thousand suns in timeless space So vast that distance gives no parallax And centuries untold would pass ere light From the remotest wanderer could burn! So vast yon fires are a hundred-fold More luminous than ours to them in turn, And it in lost direction would dissolve From Earth’s own lode-star here yclept the Pole! So vast that hosts so numberless revolve In unison as no assembled whole Of man’s most perfect mechanism moves, Yet by the which he boasts perpetual noon As though the elements he late improves And plays them in a more triumphant tune. What! Call this Night and our small dial Day Because by it we see ourselves and then As mere automatons! Such is the way Of over-conscious men; why, even I An hour since called light a flickering lamp, Philosophy the palimpsest of pedants, The universe a papier-mache script, While on it egotism’s ink was still too damp And speculation dript. But as I mount the Great Highway of Pearl Which turns to diamonds where its steeds strike hoof And chariot-wheels o’er the arena whirl Until the course is flashing flint and fire— How my soul thrills with this real vision of The truth no lips can utter—with desire To feel, not name, the Maker! Night is Day To eyes which earth’s diurnal sun had blinded But now see glory, majesty, design, Love eternal-minded, Will divine, Swinging out censers, filling space with throne-rooms, Ordering the times of destiny, Making music and revealing purpose Perfect but unthinkable, yet in man Tuning a chord of nature in response To fugitive notes of a melodious plan, To stray scintillas of a Master-spell, That we might have sufficient just of sense To throb with feeling of theophany, Just awe enough of the Ineffable Out of our pinpoint nothingness to cry “What is man that Thou art mindful of him? And what is he that he should give a Name Which we with lips vainglorious can laud, A shape of Person to the Great I AM Before we deign to worship Him as God?” PAUPACKWhither waters, gently flowing In thy rocky channel-race, Yet anon more noisy growing O’er the stones which stay thy pace— Gentle waters, whither going? Laughing louder as they hurried, Making music as they ran, Deeper still the rock they furrowed And a stolen run began Half in cliffs and chasms buried. Through the narrows flung they churning, Leaped they in a mad cascade And a bedded boulder spurning They a misty iris made, Spray to fitful spectrum turning. Wildling waters thus romancing Through the gorge in joy’s career, Wooded witchery enhancing, Paupack picturesque and dear, Haste thee onward ever dancing! Let thy pilgrimage and laughter Quicken an Algonquin vein Till the lure I follow after Flushes every sense again Like the freshet of the water; Till, O Paupack, each erosion Of my nature is at flood With a primitive emotion, With an impulse of the blood, Singing on towards the ocean! |
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