Western windows and other poems

How bright to-night lies all the Vale,
Where Autumn scatter'd harvest gold
And, far off, humm'd the rumbling flail
When dark autumnal noons were cold!

The fields put on a mask of fire,
Forever changing, in the dark;
Lo, yonder upland village spire
Flashes in air a crimson spark!

I see the farm-house roofs arise,
Among their guardian elms asleep:
Redly the flame each window dyes,
Through vines that chill and leafless creep.

Along the lonely lane, that goes
Darkening beyond the dusky hill,
Amid the light the cattle doze
And sings the 'waken'd April rill.

The mill by rocks is shadow'd o'er,
But, overhead, the shimmering trees
Stand sentinels of the rocky shore
And bud with fire against the breeze!

Afar the restless ripple shakes
Arrows of splendor through the wood,
Then all its noisy water breaks
Away in glimmering solitude.

Gaze down into the bottoms near,
Where all the darkness broadly warms:
The priests who guard the fires appear
Gigantic shadows, pigmy forms!

The enchanted Spring shall here awake
With harvest hope among her flowers;
And nights of holy dew shall make
The morning smile for toiling hours.

Behold the Sower's sacrifice
Upon the altars of the Spring!—
O dead Past, into flame arise:
New seed into the earth we fling!

It is customary in some portions of the West to rake the last year's stubble of corn into windrows and burn it preparatory to breaking the ground in Spring for a new planting. This burning is generally done after nightfall: its effect on the landscape these lines were intended to describe.

University of Virginia Library

FIRE BEFORE SEED.