  The wind plunges—then stops; And a column of leaves in a whirl, Like a dervish that spins—drops, With a delicate rustle, Falls into a circle that thins; The leaves creep away one by one, Hiding in hollows and ruts; Silence comes down on the lane: The light wheels slow from the sun, And glints where the corn stood, And strays over the plain, Touching with patches of gold, The knolls and the hollows, Crosses the lane, And slips into the wood; Then flashes a mile away on the farm, A moment of brightness fine; Then the gold glimmers and wanes, And is swept by a clouding of gray, For cheek by jowl, arm in arm, The shadow’s afoot with the shine. The wind roars out from the elm, Then leaps tiger-sudden;—the leaves Shudder up into heaps and are caught High as the branch where they hung Over the oriole’s nest. Down in the sodden field, A blind man is gathering his roots, Guided and led by a girl; Her gold hair blows in the wind, Her garments with flutter and furl Leap like a flag in the sun; And whenever he stoops, she stoops, And they heap the dark colored beets When it is full to the brim, He wheels it patiently, slow, Something oppressive and grim Clothing his figure, but she Beautifully light at his side, Touches his arm with her hand, Ready to help or to guide: Power and comfort at need In the flex of her figure lurk, The fire at the heart of the deed The angel that watches o’er work. This is her visible form, Heartening the labor she loves, Keeping the breath of it warm, Warm as a nestling of doves. Humble or high or sublime, Hers no reward of degrees, Ditching as precious as rhyme, If only the spirit be true. “Effort and effort,” she cries, “This is the heart-beat of life, Up with the lark and the dew, Still with the dew and the stars, Feel it athrob in the earth.” When labor is counselled by love, You may see her splendid, serene, Bending and brooding above, With the justice and power of her mien Where thought has its passionate birth, Her smile is the sweetest renown, For the stroke and the derring-do, Her crown is the starriest crown. When tears at the fountain are dry, Bares she the round of her breast, Lulls this avatar of rest; Strength is her arm for the weak; Courage the wells of her eyes; What is the power of their deeps, Only the baffled can guess; Nothing can daunt the emprise When she sets hand to the hilt; Victory is she—not less. And oh! in the cages and dens Where women work down to the bone, Where men never laugh but they curse, Think you she leaves them alone? She the twin-sister of Love! There, where the pressure is worst, Of this hell-palace built to the skies Upon hearts too crushed down to burst, There, she is wiser than wise, Giving no vistas sublime Of towers in the murmurous air, With gardens of pleasaunce and pride Lulling the fleetness of time, With doves alight by the side Of a fountain that veils and drips; She offers no tantalus-cup To the shrunken, the desperate lips; But she calms them with lethe and love, And deadens the throb and the pain, And evens the heart-beat wild, Whispering again and again, “Work on, work on, work on, My broken, my agonized child,” With her tremulous, dew-cool lips, At the whorl of the tortured ear, Till the cry is the presage of hope, The trample of succor near. Breeds night with a leaguer of fears, (Night, that on earth brings the dew, With stars at the window, and wind In the maples, and rushes of balm,) She pours from their limitless stores Her sacred, ineffable tears. When a soul too weary of life Sets to its madness an end, Then for a moment her eyes Lighten, and thunder broods dark, Heavy and strong at her heart; But for a moment, and then All her imperious wrath Breaks in a passion of tears, With the surge of her grief outpoured, She sinks on the bosom of Love, Her sister of infinite years, And is wrapped, and enclosed, and restored. So we have come with the breeze, Up to the height of the hill, Lost in the valley trees, The old blind man and the girl; But deep in the heart is the thrill Of the image of counselling love; The shape of the soul in the gloom, And the power of the figure above, Stand for the whole world’s need: For labor is always blind, Unless as the light of the deed The angel is smiling behind. Now on the height of the hill, The wind is fallen to a breath; But down in the valley still, And angers the river’s breast; The fields turn into the dark That plays on the round of the sphere; A star leaps sharp in the clear Line of the sky, clear and cold; But a cloud in the warmer west Holds for a little its gold; Like the wing of a seraph who sinks Into antres afar from the earth, Reluctant he flames on the brinks Of the circles of nebulous stars, Reluctant he turns to the rest, From the planet whose ideal is love, And then as he sweeps to the void Vivid with tremulous light, He gives it his translucent wing, An emblem of pity unfurled, Then falls to the uttermost ring, And is lost to the world.
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