The Vale of Arden and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Here, in this maze of stifling streets,
Where heaven's own eye looks sick and spent,
Where day to day care's curse repeats,
And nature's priceless poesy
Is bartered for a glittering discontent,
I would not choose to die.

But when with weary feet I turn,
Baffled, from truth's continual quest,
And hope's rich bow hath ceased to burn,
And, heard afar, the curfew-bell
Calleth my heart home to the quiet breast
Of her I love so well—

Dear mother Earth—I fain would watch
The wisdom of thy gradual ways
From underneath some ancient thatch,
Where all that toucheth eye or ear
Keepeth the simple tone of those good days
When childhood's fount ran clear;

There to abide, and hold awhile
Communion with thy soul, and mark
Thy reverend visage frown and smile,
And woo the secret of the breeze,
While dawn grows noon and noon declines to dark
By unperceived degrees;

So, made at one with thee, to taste
Contentment's temperate cup, nor spill
One precious drop in needless haste,
But, with youth's fever-dream subdued,
Let Nature's sovereign alchemy distil
The balm of quietude;

And feel her healing influence fall,
As when upon a sufferer's head
A hand is laid, medicinal
To put the lean and clamorous brood
Of pain-begotten cares to flight, and spread
A slumber through the blood.

Embosomed shall my cottage be
In woodlands, whence the village spire
Peeps, and the overflowing glee
Of lips that cannot long be sad
Makes with the songbirds' sweet untutored quire
Music divinely glad;

Not where the cloud-encumbered brows
Of mountains brood o'er barren dales,
And many a fretful torrent flows;
Nor where, with slow-returning sigh,
The sleepless surge eternally bewails
Life's lonely mystery;

But where, by moss-grown watermills
And willowy meadows fringed with reed,
Old Avon creeps beside the hills
That shelter, not seclude, the plain,
And peaceful kine o'er sunny pastures feed
Refreshed with genial rain.

There, in the softly sloping lap
Of England's peace, where hedges trim
Chequer the lea, and mists enwrap
Each hidden hamlet, waits my home—
A drowsy region, friendly unto him
That asks no more to roam;

There Shakespeare's self was moulded; there
He wooed his love, he wove his verse;
There his full soul grew ripe; and ere
His song was stilled, on that kind breast
Contented well to sleep, he laid a curse
On who should break his rest.

A land where venerable trees
Whisper to many a storied grange,
Where orchards slumber, and the breeze
Comes laden with the breath of flowers,
And all things bask, and nothing swift or strange
Disturbs the loitering hours.

No sea-blast warps the stateliness
Of those great elms; but wafted mild
From the warm hills the large airs bless
The mellow midland vale; and all
That liveth where its generous sun hath smiled
Doth goodly grow and tall.

Not desolate is he that dwells
In that still country; all around
Breathes a familiar voice, that tells
The soul's desire is satisfied,
And man with every earth-born thing is bound
In kindred close and wide.

The murmur of the haunted woods,
The sombre music of the storm,
The spell that o'er the distance broods,
In one broad harmony unite
Of peace, as blend the rainbow's tones to form
The perfect chord of light;

And as of yore rich incense rose,
When on their knees the people fell
'Neath some vast dome, so all that grows
Beneath heaven's roof pays to the sun
Due worship of earth's sweet and wholesome smell,
Mingling all life in one;

The fragrance of the fresh-turned loam,
Of hawthorn bloom and breathing hay,
The slumbrous air of harvest-home,
Find each in man their counterpart,
And make the echoes of old memories play
About his listening heart;

Whether through greenwood shades he steals,
Or museth where the landscape sweeps
Into the realm of dream, he feels
A sense of great companionship,
Of one that knoweth all but ever keeps
A finger on the lip;

He hears—when not a blade is stirred,
And, muffled in dense foliage,
Only the call of some shy bird
Deepens the silence of the whole—
He hears a voice whose comfort can assuage
The fever of his soul.

Gently the seasons twine their arms,
Lingering amid those tranquil glades,
Relieving each the other's charms,
Waking and lulling pure desires—
A restful loveliness that never fades,
A change that never tires.

Spring trills her blithest carol there,
When cowslips fleck the glistening green,
When swallows cleave the gladsome air
With rapturous cries, and bursting buds
Breathe, after showers, a soft mysterious sheen
Along the sunlit woods.

There, when the hidden dove all day
Purrs in the coppice dim with heat,
Reclined beneath a wild-rose spray
June sleepeth in the still noontide,
While over fragrant fields of bean and wheat
The slow cloud-shadows glide.

But chiefly autumn loves to shed
Her placid sunshine o'er the vale,
When wide across the mead is spread
Warm river-mist, and the mild year
Dreameth, and orchards rich with fruit exhale
A lustrous atmosphere;

Then sweet it is, with meek-eyed dawn,
While yet the shadows of the sheaves
Stretch far and faint, to pace the lawn
Dew-silvered; or to stray with her
By ragged hedgerows while the reddening leaves
Are gray with gossamer;

To watch, when golden afternoon
Floodeth the garden's sanctuary,
Bees harvesting the blossom's boon,
Where mid the stately hollyhocks
Teems the rich hive, and flits the butterfly
O'er flower-beds edged with box.

When winter's loud-lunged herald wears
His motley suit, 'tis good to mark
Storm-pennons, which the south wind tears
To tatters, stream across the sky,
And sun-gleams chequer hamlet, holt and park
With wild emblazonry,

Chasing the shadows as they sweep
O'er stubble fields and withered sedge,
Gilding awhile the ricks that peep,
Fresh-thatched, where brooding yews protect
Some low-browed homestead on the river's edge,
Time-stained and ivy-decked.

Dear too are winter's sober skies
To him who pants for quiet; all
The lavish autumn splendour lies
Asleep beneath its coverlet
Of fallen foliage; and a purple pall
Clings, when the sun hath set,

To naked woods as soft as clouds;
While with cold arm the saintly moon
Hallows the silent mist that shrouds
The darkening furrows, and a calm
Unfelt in springtime's morn or summer's noon
Sinks on the soul, like balm

On a parched wound. And as the glow
Of sunlight's pride must perish ere
The stars can tremble, even so
Is many a modest beauty bid
To grace the staid night-season of the year,
Whom his bright day had hid;

No longer overgrown with green,
But gemmed with rain and berry-crowned,
From each bare hedge the eye may glean
Soul-sustenance;—enough to trace
One spray of white-veined ivy clinging round
An oak-tree's lichened base;

Or roaming the chill fields among,
Where heavily the plough-team moves,
To hear the robin's slender song,
When fuller throats have ceased to strain,
Repeat to flowerless glades and mournful groves
Its simple sweet refrain;

And nearing home, through leafless trees
To see the thin blue smoke ascend,
Where amid vine-clad cottages
Life slowly smoulders to its rest,
Each kindly-hearted swain a natural friend,
Each roof a human nest.

So would I praise the bounteous year,
And quickened by earth's close caress,
Would hold the lowliest weed more dear
Than all the laboured pomp of art;
Eased of the city's crowded loneliness
Which chokes, yet starves, the heart;

But strengthened from the living wells,
And nurtured on the wholesome fare
Of country sights and sounds and smells,
Would find beneath the greenwood bough
All that I loved in childhood unaware,
And love with worship now.

And let me at the last repose
Not where along unlovely ways
The roaring tide of trouble flows,
But where is heard the bleat of sheep,
And homely elms, that breathe of by-gone days,
Watch o'er the churchyard's sleep;

There by the sweet birds shall be said
My requiem, and death's garden wear
A look so kind, that unafraid
Children shall come to weave a wreath
Of daisies gathered from my grave, nor care
Who lieth underneath.