The harp and plow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Old Time, the tireless, in his book
Has turned a leaf anew,
And bent thereon his solemn look
To make a record true.
As fast successive years are told,
Do we grow wise as we grow old?
Is wisdom to the man as coy
As when he was a little boy?
Shall he no godlike lesson learn,
While, wheeling on, the planets burn,
And constant, in their wondrous play,
Light for his thoughts a loftier way?

The woodman in some sheltering nook,
When haply Phœbus shines,
Hears far o'erhead the solemn airs
Among the shivering pines.
There seated, thoughtful and alone,
He takes his frugal meal,
And feels a sympathizing gloom
Upon his spirits steal;

His dog, from many a fruitless search,
Comes to his master there,
And seems his gloomy thoughts to feel,
And would his dinner share.

From mossy trunks, with nervous arm,
He rears the ponderous load,
And slowly seeks his distant home
Along the dreary road.
The rising storm, from regions bleak,
May howl o'er him in wrath,
The furious squall and eddying drift
May blind the sledder's path;
Still on he cheers his patient team,
He whistles, shouts, and sings;
He 's thinking of the pleasure that
The fireside circle brings.

At length, storm-beaten, to his door
His weary cattle come;
His children peer the windows through,
And shout a welcome home;
Gone are the labors of the day,
The beatings of the storm;
His features soften to a smile,
Beside his hearth-stone warm.

A little child—her father's pet—
Is seated on his knee,
And hears about the squirrel's nest
Snug in the hollow tree;

The winter-berries in his vest
She seeks, and calls them good;
The woodman thought about his child
When in the lonely wood.

FEBRUARY.

O, Winter! unto those who feel
No creature-comfort unsupplied,
Whose garners swell with precious fruits
Of acres stretching far and wide;
Whose vestments warm, and dwellings grand,
Thy fiercest howling blast withstand,—
Thy presence pleasure brings;
The ride, the dance, the gay soiree,
The fireside circle's bright display
O'er joyless Nature flings
A veil, to hide her visage pale,
To stifle Want's heart-moving tale
Uprising from thy snows.
And though around the pampered form
Is girt the cloak of comfort warm,
The heart within, God knows,
Is cold and deaf;—it has no ear
The plaint of misery to hear—
A supplicated boon;
'Tis cold with selfishness, as now
Upon Monadnock's glittering brow
The light of winter's moon!

Think, favored ones, within the streets
So broad, where Plenty Pleasure meets,—
Think of the bye and lonely roads
That lead to Misery's abodes!
The hut, half-buried in the snow;
The stolen fuel, burning low,
O'er which, in fear, some squalid form
Is crouched, its shivering self to warm;
And mopes, and muses, starts and stares,
Raves of its woes, and plots, and swears!
Think of the victim you might save
From prison glooms, from felon's grave;
And lead, with timely aid bestowed,
On Virtue's heaven-seeking road.
Pray, favored ones, within whose door
The fierce temptations of the poor,
Barred out by Plenty, never come
Like fiends to desolate your home—
Pray, in the heart of winter-time,
For the poor child of Want and Crime.
Think of the cot on some bleak plain,
Where Winter's winds their strength unchain;
Where whirling through the leaden skies
The smothering tempest madly flies!
There, hidden by the trackless snows,
Poor suffering Worth sustains its woes;
Feeds spirit from the stores of faith,
While the poor body starves to death.

O, when will Heaven deign to give
To those who on its bounty live

And have thereof to spare,
A feeling heart, to cheer the sad,
To bless the good, to guide the bad,
And with the needy share!

MARCH.

Since Bryant touched his harp for thee,
And sang thee in his tuneful strains,
How feeble the attempt in me
To sing thy winds and chequered plains!

But still thy airs so freely blown,
Awake an answering chord; to me
There 's music in thy piping tone,
Thy march is full of melody.

Thou call'st the rabbit from her lair,
And wonder beams in pussy's eyes;
O'er the flecked hill-side, wearing bare,
With thy mad winds a race she tries.

Yonder the smoky column gray
Is wreathing from the leafless wood;
There the swart rustic boils away
The sugar-maple's limpid blood.

There in his lonely camp he stays
And keeps his hermit fire a-glow;
And feels relieved when o'er him strays
The hailing, reconnoitering crow.

I mark yon early bird, and lone,
That plumes herself with idle bill,
Or tries a would-be merry tone
To soothe thy wild and wayward will.

The squirrel peeps from out his cell
When haply Phœbus warms the sky,
And hastes his moody mate to tell
Glad days are coming by-and-by.

And they will come; e'en at thy heels
The lengthened hours of April tread;
The earth her bubbling springs unseals,
And verdure vivifies the dead.

Wild month! thy storm-encircled ways
Mind me how good men's lives are past;
Clouds may begirt them all their days,
But sunshine glorifies at last.

APRIL.

The winds are called; and pleasant days
Are giving gladness now;
They call the cattle forth to graze,
The farmer to his plow.

Upon the mountain's sunward side
The maple shows its buds;
The elm begins its shadow wide,
And birches scent the woods.

The alder hangs its tassels out
Down by the water-side;
Beneath the spring-enlivened trout
Like darting arrows glide.

The squirrel chatters on the bough,
The bird sings in the tree;
Abroad is early roaming now
The honey-seeking bee.

At morn I saw a cloud like snow
Above the river lie;
The day-beams chased it from below—
It vanished in the sky.

And so, like yon bright cloud, thought I,
Oft cherished fancies go;
Dissolving, so they fade and fly,
As sure, but scarce as slow.

I saw at noon a passing shower
Steal o'er the landscape bright;
It brought to mind a tearful hour
When looking for delight.

I saw above the sunken sun
Rich clouds in beauty piled;
There, lingering when the day was done,
Reflected glory smiled.

So o'er the just, the good, the brave,
When all life's sails are furled,
Their virtues, clustering o'er the grave,
Still light a darkened world.

MAY.

Thou last, thou sweetest of the train
Of all the vernal sisters three;
Whose vesture beautifies the plain,
Whose garlands rich bedeck the tree.
Whose melody,
Unwritten from the bush and bough,
Is music's own;—thrice welcome thou!

How like art thou to life's young morn,
E'er passion's fires begin to glow!
E'er cares, like frosts, lay bare the thorn,
Or age makes pallid as the snow!
How like, I know,
To the bright morning of his day
Whose sun casts shadows o'er his lay!

The twittering swallows wake the morn
Beneath the hospitable eaves;
The cock blows shrill his clarion horn;
The robin, hid among the leaves,
Her tribute gives,
Pouring her song to hail the day,
So sweet, so sorrowfully gay.

The brooks run sparkling to the day,
The bloom of trees perfumes the air;
The landscape with its rich array
Seems one Elysian region fair,
Beyond compare
To aught save fancy's land of dreams,
That with phantasmal beauty teems.

The harbinger of corn I heard
While furrowing the field to-day;
The sweet prophetic planting-bird
Sang, perched upon the shaking spray,
His vocal lay;
And, pausing o'er the plow to hear,
I answered thus the prattler dear:—

Sing on, sweet bird! soon shall the corn
Upspringing from the ground appear;
First will the spiky blade be born,
The tassel next, and next the ear,
And autumn sere
Shall heap upon the harvest plain
The ponderous sheaves of golden grain.

And on whose bounty shalt thou feed,
Meantime, who tell'st the time to plant?
Come to my door in time of need,—
Thou shalt not for thy morsel want.
Say'st thou ‘I sha'nt?’—
Ah! 't was thy neighbor of the bough
With dusky coat,—I see him, now!

Fair May! thy very name implies
A power, but of a doubtful kind:—
We may ‘shoot folly as it flies,’
Or we may be, indeed, too blind;
And we may find
That hatred, hope, e'en love sincere,
Are tethered to the rolling year!

JUNE.

Hail, beauteous June! the twelvemonth's leafy prime!
Unstained as yet by summer's dust and heat;
Art may not copy from the book of time
Thy living tableau pleasing and complete.

This glorious ‘blue of June’!—the morning skies
Unchequered by a single cloudy fleece.
From wood and hill, from vale and stream arise
Incense and anthems to the Fount of Peace!

I love to con the pictures in thy book,
O, moon of leaves! all rurally displayed:
The grazing herd beside the clear, cold brook,
The green banks greener in the elmy shade;

The woody mountain, in the distance blue;
The valley where the sleeping waters shine;
The lawn, the cornfield, emerald in hue;—
All matchless limnings by a hand Divine.

There is a picture upon yonder slope,
So freshly verdant in the morning sun:
Two lambkins, types of Innocence and Hope,
O'er the bright carpet of the morning run.

How like two children in their careless play!
How heedless of the butcher, like the child!
I saw an old man looking, bowed and gray;
He looked, seemed sorrowful, and faintly smiled.

The housewife watching from the cottage door,
Sees o'er the hive the insect cloud arise;
Diffused awhile on humming wings they soar,
And kindly cluster where their monarch flies.

From underneath the bridge the phœbe starts,
Scared by the footsteps of the passer by;
Through the cool arches of the alders darts,
Or snaps on salient wings the dronish fly.

With early morn the strains of music come,
And summer's minstrels gladden all the day;
The gold-finch fifing and the cuckoo's drum,
The bob'link's demi-semi-quavered lay.

There is the sun-browned farmer at his toil,
Early afield among the springing corn;
His are the healthful labors of the soil,
The noblest calling of a freeman born.

True son of Independence! ah, how few
High sounding statesmen can thy merit claim!
They may cause wars and fightings; such as you
Save, in the battle's shock, the nation's name.

JULY.

On the fourth morning of thy moon,
From slumber we awaken soon;
The thundering gun, and pealing bell
A nation's glad remembrance tell.

'Tis well; I love to see the fire
Our father's built, re-burn;
I love the memories of the sire—
The ashes, and the urn!
I love to see the gray-haired man,
Who can tell more than history can,
Filled with emotion when he sees
That banner streaming in the breeze.
The tears that down his visage roll
When sounds that fire the soldier's soul
Break on his deadened ears, declare
He once was ready, and was there.

Haymakers to their labors speed
At morning's dewy dawn;
They gather in the tangled mead
And on the upland lawn.

Through the tall grass the mower goes,
A day's work in his mein;
The grass he likens to his foes,
His scythe to falchion keen.

(The farmer's life may peaceful be,
Free from all bloody feuds;
Yet will he use instinctively
Warlike similitudes.)

High noon is blazing from the sky;
Broad acres shorn and withered lie,
While in the maple's cooling shade
The mowers lazily are laid.

The farmer springs from out his chair,
The weather is his watchful care
And not the terrors of lee-shore
Could startle hardy seaman more,
Than him that growling from afar,
Proclaiming elemental war;—
Sounds, which at distance far away,
I've heard my good old grandame say,
Seemed like the sullen booming gun
On battle-day at Bennington.

Sudden grows dark the western sky;
All hands a-field! is now the cry.
The cottage girl with laughing eyes
And flushed with health and exercise
Comes bounding outward from the door,
And half in sport, but something more,
Seizes a rake with carol cheery,
And with her presence fires the weary.
Then soon along the darkening road
Is trundling home the ponderous load,
Lively, my lads! the rushing rain
Is just behind you on the plain!
Lively! and gain the open doors,
E'er pattering on the roof it pours.

Toil brings its recompense to one
Whose thoughts are working like his hands;
For toil's reward is not alone
The product rich of fertile lands.

Does one possess the painter's eye,
Or sip the bright Pierian bowl?
Then cares that listless ease deny
Stamp vigor's impress on his soul.—

Thus muses, in the gloaming, one
As round him meadows shorn are seen,
And the last pencil of the sun
Tinges the oaks with golden green!

AUGUST—MY BIRTH-MONTH.

God of the years! the month is born,
The month peculiarly my own,
When I, to lead life's hope forlorn,
All helpless on the world was thrown!

August, thou month of months to me!
Not for the beauty of thy scenes;
Not harvests gladdening to see;
But fast on thee my memory leans.

Not, as the poet sang, do I
‘Dim backward’ on thy memories look;
Distinctly on the past they lie
Like pictures painted in a book.

I've seen the arrow fly by day;
I've seen the pestilence walk by night;
And once beneath thy scathing ray
Death hid a cherub from my sight.

Those torrid days and solemn eves,—
The cricket's dull and dreamy sound;
The moonlight, shivered by the leaves,
All ghastly flickering on the ground!

Like as the soldier, who survives
The battle's rage and carnage sore,
Will wonder how it is he lives,
When thinking all its perils o'er;—

E'en so do I look back and see
All the grim scenes thro' which I've pass'd,
And wonder how remains for me
The mortal conflict and the last.

Blent with the seasons is our life;
E'en so it springs, e'en so departs;
And tokens of a mortal strife
Are monthly graven on our hearts.

But there's another life to come;
The thoughtful know and feel it sure;
Where virtue shall attain its home,
And worth be honored that is pure.

A sort of harvest 't will appear,—
A mighty gathering of the grain;
But many a sheaf called noble here,
Will not be counted so again.

Yes, the great Reaper, we are told
Shall be the judge of all the earth;
Things by right names shall then be called:
Pride will be pride, and worth be worth.

SEPTEMBER.

There's a note of sadness found
In the breeze;
As it sweeps the dwelling round;
And it goes with sighing sound
Through the trees.

Round the corner of the lone
Cottage wall
Comes a hollow, mystic moan,
And the hearer says the tone
‘Sounds like Fall.’

And the evenings have a chill
Frosty gleam;
White the mist at morning still
Climbing lazily the hill
From the stream.

Now bends the lowering sky
To the plain;
Or damp the south winds fly,
And the rack goes drifting by,
Boding rain.

Now there's gladness in our ways
As we go;
There's a pleasant smoky haze,
Such as Indian-summer days
Always show.

Plenty follows in the train
Of the plough;
Lo! the stooks of yellow grain
Dotting o'er the harvest plain;
Lo! the bough.

Fruits are ripening in the rays
Of the sun;
And the ‘lap of earth’ displays
What in spring's engendering days
Was begun.

So September comes arrayed—
Plenteous dame!
But with all her cheer displayed,
There's a sombre little shade
On her name.

OCTOBER.

Lift up your eyes, and look abroad
Upon this gorgeous scene;
It is the last upon the road
Spring and the snows between;

And though a beauteous vista may,
Through coming glooms, a moment play,
This shows as when a painter tries
A last grand effort ere he dies.

Let him who reads the falling leaf
His symbol of decay,
Blend with the plaintive winds his grief,
And mourn, as mourn he may.
And let him look with eye of faith
Beyond the brumal bourn of death,
And picture heaven blooming fair
And vernal freshness fadeless there.—

But I will mourn that thou art brief,
October in thy stay;
That thou art passing as the leaf
Drifts downward and away;
And for the clime of heaven fair,
Give me the Indian-summer there!
For never does it bless us here
But that I dream 't will there appear.

O, charming scenes! on looking back
To childhood's sunny ways,
The brightest spots upon life's track
Are these Autumnal days;
The breezy wood, the hazy sun,
The river-shore, and well-kept gun;
The dog that loved his master-boy,
And scoured the landscape, mad with joy.

The ramble on the frosty morn,
Nut-seeking, brisk and boon;
The social husking of the corn,
The full, old-fashioned moon;
The harvest-home beneath its beams,
The murmured music of the streams,
The mountain's prismy forest-wall,
The holy calm enwraping all!

As hope, with her enchanting ray,
Intangible, yet bright,
Illumines childhood's flowery way
With undefined delight,—
So when the Pride of Autumn comes,
Its glorious gladness, and its glooms,
A pensive charm pervades my mind,
Complete and sweet, yet undefined.

NOVEMBER.

The beauty of the fields is flown,
All withered their array;
The brooks sing in an undertone,
The woods are grim and gray;
O'er all of Nature's face is thrown
The semblance of decay.

The ditcher in the lonely mead
Arouses with surprise,
To hear from some frost-blackened weed

The pee-dee's startling cries;
Sees solitary ravens speed
Along the windy skies.

Impending storms; the frozen north
Is treasuring snow and hail;
The south is threatening the earth
With rain and gusty gale;
And Phœbus when he glimmers forth
Looks sickly, cold, and pale.

Foreshortened by the cloudy sky,
The day is quickly done;
'T is twilight to the laborer's eye
Ere sets the tarnished sun;
A hunter, idly halting nigh,
Gives him the ‘evening gun.’

The cotter in the chimney-nook
Sits looking in the fire;
There is a sadness in his look—
He hears a pensive lyre;
The music is of nature's book,
And her autumnal choir.

The night-winds, roaring o'er the lea,
Begirt his dwelling round;
Now shrill their melancholy key,
Now lowly and profound;
The cotter hears, and pensively
He muses at the sound.

Anon he opes the door to spy
The aspect of the night;
Dark clouds are driving 'thwart the sky,
And wild-fowl on their flight;
He hears their undulating cry,
Faint from their distant height.

Borne inland from the misty deep
Now comes the loitering rain;
The dreamer, waking from his sleep,
Listens, and dreams again
Of plunging barks, that, wrecking, sweep
The storm-enshrouded main.

DECEMBER.

Cold swept the withering blasts of fall
O'er herbage green, and sheltering tree;
Thro' naked boughs the gleaning winds
Are howling mournfully.

Cold drives snow-muffling Boreas
Outside of comfort's well-barr'd door;
Cold as thy presence is thy name,
December, to the poor.

Cold gleam the stars at night; afar,
High in the north, the Dipper shines,
As if 'twere dripping with the wealth
Of Californian mines.

Ah! wanderer to the auric shore!
Sunk from thy sight yon cluster glows;
So hope's bright phantom, chased by thee,
Round earth's rotunda goes.

A year's a type of human life;
December truly symbols age;
A year is like a volume read,
And this the final page.

A year is like a beaten road,
O'er which, as travellers, we wend
Our way amid its changeful scenes,
And this the journey's end.

A year is like a lengthened day;
It has its dawn, its noon, its night;
December is the sunset scene,
Pale glimmering on the sight.

A year is like a stream that flows
Thro' varied clime and scenery,
To find oblivion in the deep—
And this the opening sea.

A year is like the implement
The patriarch in vision found,
Spaced by twelve steps, in place of three—
And this the lowest round.

Reared 'gainst time's shadowy battlements
It leans, dissolving to the view;
Ho! climber, chiseling a name!
'T is gone, and yours, and you!

O, could one lift the solemn veil
That shrouds the mighty Past, and see
Departed years in centuries piled—
The coins of Deity;

And could he see as in a glass
All the great family of man,
Those whose desires encompassed earth,
Now under Lethe's ban;

Lost and unknown with all their deeds,
Lost and unknown with all their fame,—
Less would he strive to write upon
Time's flying scroll his name.

But rather this: that when the years
To him allotted, all are told,
He may on Heaven's ledger find
His credit good enrolled.