Nature-notes and impressions in prose and verse

Lead me, thou Bard of Beauty, through those caves
Of pale Diana! let me hear the moan
Of Ocean, sorrowing with all his waves
As once he sorrowed on that Island lone

In siren moonlight. Here, where twilight paves
The woodland paths, I seem to hear her trail
Dim raiment; her, that damsel who enslaves
My soul; that Beauty, sad, divinely pale,
That haunts thy song, mastering the gamut whole
Of dreams and music; on whose easeful breast,—
As once Endymion's head, soft-dreaming, pressed
That Indian maiden's bosom,—rests my soul.

[O let me sing as thou didst, Keats, and die]

O let me sing as thou didst, Keats, and die!
With soul poured on the circling starry night;
When Dian's lune hangs dewy in the sky,
And the wild nightingale with anguished might
Bewails in some dense bramble's spicy dusk
Its old heart-sorrow to the wild rose wan;

Or let me, like thyself, drink in the musk
Of some dull draught from Lethe's waters drawn,
And sink, as thou didst, into dreamless sleep,
Where disappointment, heartache, grief and scorn,
And human misery can no longer heap
The soul that treads life's path set round with thorn;
Ay! fall asleep, as thou didst fall asleep
Under the alien skies, of hope forlorn!

[In the forest of music often and often]

In the forest of music often and often,
To the murmuring song of the winds and waters,
Have our spirits mingled and mixed
In the wildflower dance of the Hours
On the mossy carpet under the whispering leaves:
Or wandered, hand in shadowy hand,
Beneath the song-suggestive stillness of the moon:
Or leaned, listening,
Over deep glens of echoing green,
Carved in the ancient bosoms of the hills

By sonorous and impetuous waters,
Bearing upon their foamy crests
Crescents and points, starry and still,
Of reflected emerald flame,
When the heavens bloomed and blazed with a million quivering fires.
Dost thou know her name?
Fairest of the Daughters of Music is she,
Loveliest of all the Children of Art.

[When winter nights are cold and shrill]

When winter nights are cold and shrill,
And winds sit rocking wild their arms,
Far off, beyond the treeless hill,
Sound ghostly faint the owl's alarms.
Wail, wail, thou bird of ill omén,
Within thy freezing glen!
Screech, screech through all the frosty night
Where gleams the cold moonlight!

Well with man's mood thy song accords,
Thy song that knows but wailing words.

Lo, where the oats in barn are housed,
The screech-owl sits and croons and cries,
Until the cocks are all aroused
And know to-night some pullet dies.
Hush, hush, thou staring owl!
And leave the roosting fowl!
Go, seek the shivering wood,
And there, where wild winds brood,
Sing to the soul that hope has lost,
The soul that still is tempest-tost.

When snows drift deep the forest path,
And sleet bows down the strongest trees,
Like Edgar's fear and Lear's crazed wrath,
The screech-owl's voice makes wild the breeze.
Mourn, mourn, thou feathered witch
Above the frozen ditch!
Weep, weep, unto the icy gale,
Where icicles hang pale,
As weeps the heart, ingratitude
Makes winter of, the grief pursued.

[The roar of winter through the palsied oaks]

The roar of winter through the palsied oaks,
Wind-tortured on the withered fields,
Is as the sound of giant chariot spokes,
And clashing of innumerable shields.

[I've wooed soft sleep all night]

I've wooed soft sleep all night,
Clothed in her mantle white
And dim as rain;
I've lain all night and wept
For death, who past me crept,
To still this pain,
Heart's pain, but all in vain.

Why cam'st thou not, O death?
Why cam'st thou not, O sleep?
Death's brother, calm of breath,
For whom I keep
Vigil the long night through:
At last the day breaks blue
And dim the dawn.
Would that you yet might hear,
And hearing me, draw near
Ere night be gone.

The night is wild; the bitter blasts sweep by;
The shrouded snows with ghostly fingers beat
The shuddering casements, and the candle flame
Seems fluttered of phantom lips whose kiss is death.

[With its helm of silver and spur of gold]

With its helm of silver and spur of gold
A fairy knight is the toad-flax bold,
Who takes this form to mortal eyes,
The form of a flower of golden dyes.

[By the willow copse near the river shore]

By the willow copse near the river shore,
Where the white waves hush their splash and roar,
With an idle sail and an idle oar
I seemed to drift into other streams,
Borne on by the sleepy current of dreams.

[O wilding of the young, young June]

O wilding of the young, young June,
That this old rock holds fast,
Thy day is done too soon, too soon,
Too beautiful to last.

[When all the orchards faded lie]

When all the orchards faded lie,
When roses drop and lilies die,

When fall's full moon makes deep the sky,
Lay me asleep,
Where breezes bend the sighing trees,
Lay me asleep.

When all the dusty autumn day
Is heard the locust's roundelay,
And, dropping leaves, the tree-tops sway
And wildflowers there,
Beneath the wildflowers let me rest,
The wildflowers there.

Let not thy hand disturb the grass
To plant an alien flower there;
Let those wild infants, free as fair,
Above me, sleeping, bloom and pass,
Forgotten die,
Forgotten as myself, alas!
Who 'neath them lie.

[The moon is a lemon petal]

The moon is a lemon petal,
And the west a wild-rose red,
And the twilight twines her dusky locks
With lily-like stars o'erhead.

[Deep down, deep down, deep, deep, deep]

Deep down, deep down, deep, deep, deep!
Follow us! come with us!—See how we leap!
Daughters of Æger, veiled white with the spray,
Beckoning, calling you. Oh, come away!

Children of Earth, come hither, where we
Dwell in Ran's realms of cerulean hue;
Where through her caverns of green and of blue
Echo our songs, our songs of the sea,
Dirging the dead, the sailors who sleep
Deep down, deep down, deep, deep, deep!
Come, where the dulse and the nautilus cling!
Come away, come away, here where we sing!
Where of your eyes we will fashion pale homes,
Hollow, for pearls and the glimmering foams.

[Come, kiss me, beautiful Death]

Come, kiss me, beautiful Death,
And lull me with thy wings;
Breathe on me with thy breath,
And touch my soul with things
Unknown of life. Imbue
My body with thy dew
And bear me far away
Into a deeper dawn
Than lights life's shadowy lawn,
Some fairer break-of-day.

Life's sickness, long and old,
Cure in me; everything:
Life's greed for fame and gold
And love and suffering.
Yea, I am young and fair!
Come, take me by the hair
And kiss me on the eyes;
Then bear me through the deep,
As thy brother, dream-tossed Sleep,
Hath borne me loving-wise.

[Cheerily rang the bugle horn]

Cheerily rang the bugle horn,
Cheerily through the wood,
For the ten-tined buck by the hunt outworn
At bay 'neath the old oak stood.

[And now yon crystal mount of clouds]

And now yon crystal mount of clouds
Silvers with light as 't were of wings,
Whose base the thunder's blackness shrouds,
While to its summit brightness clings.

Along the west, flashed through the dun,
Leaping, the angled lightnings fly,
Cleaving the deeps, where thunders run
Like mountain torrents down the sky.

Out of it rises, partly hid,
A cloud, rose-spar, all fair of form,
Like some sky-pointed pyramid,
Or pillar of light, above the storm.

May 23, 1885; 6 P. M.

[The broad Ohio's darkening stream]

The broad Ohio's darkening stream
Seems now as still as liquid glass,
In which the bridge's pillars dream
Unwavering where the still waves pass.

The shattered thunder fragments fly;
One cloud alone makes dark the west,
Low stooping to the evening sky,
A champion with a burning crest:

Through whose mailed breast of darkness dim
And ragged rents of vapors deep,
The sun sweeps lances, long and slim,
Of flame that fall on vale and steep.

Through stratas torn of windy rack
Full flashes now its crimson star,
Blazing blood-red through stormy black
And bronze of tempest scattered far.

May 23, 1885; 6:30 P.M.

[O wind of eve, what spices, steeped]

O wind of eve, what spices, steeped
In some more aromatic clime,
Thou breathest,—as from islands reaped
Of Summer, over seas of thyme.

Thou bearest odor on thy breath
Fresh as the scent of ocean's waves;
Cool as if thou hadst lain beneath,
All day, in dark and crystal caves.

Night comes, with sparkling fireflies
Like jewels tangled in her hair,
And all around her perfumes rise
Of rain, as 't were dim spirits there.

[When eve casts on the day's dark bier]

When eve casts on the day's dark bier
The rhododendrons of her light,
And trims her stars, like tapers clear,
At feet and head, how fair is night.

[O my Kentucky, forest old!]

O my Kentucky, forest old!
Where Beauty dwells, the stalwart child
Of Love and Life, where I behold
The dreams still glow that long beguiled

The marble and the bronze of men,
Whose Art made fair the world of old,
Yet never held, of classic ken,
A form like thine which I would mould.

Around me now I turn and gaze:
The earth is green; the heaven is clear:
Where smile the stars, or bloom the days
More absolutely fair than here!

Young still is she, and fresh as morn,
Standing her sister States among;
Ah! would I were a poet born,
To sing her as she should be sung!

Bidding her keep beneath her heel
The lust for wealth, wrong's iron crown;
Her pioneer pride, a shield of steel,
A buckler that no foe may down.

Sister to Hospitality!
Mother of Lincoln and of Clay!
Make thyself worthy still to be
Mother of men as great as they.

Mother of loves and hopes that dare;
Of dreams and deeds that sing and toil,
Whose hands are open as the air,
Whose honor none on earth may soil!

Let mightier dreams be thine! arise!
Let all the world behold thee set
A constellation in the skies
Where all thy sister Stars are met!

1885.

[A distant river glimpsed through deep-leaved trees]

A distant river glimpsed through deep-leaved trees.
A field of fragment flint, blue, gray, and red.
Rocks overgrown with twigs of trailing vines
Thick-hung with clusters of the green wild-grape.
Old chestnut groves the haunt of drowsy cows,
Full-uddered kine chewing a sleepy cud;
Or, at the gate, around the dripping trough,
Docile and lowing, waiting the milking-time.
Lanes where the wild-rose blooms, murmurous with bees,
The bumble-bee tumbling their frowsy heads,
Rumbling and raging in the bell-flower's bells,
Drunken with honey, singing himself asleep.

Old in romance a shadowy belt of woods.
A house, wide-porched, before which sweeps a lawn
Gray-boled with beeches and where elder blooms.
And on the lawn, whiter of hand than milk,
And sweeter of breath than is the elder bloom,
A woman with a wild-rose in her hair.

[No more for me shall gray-robed Dawn look through]

“No more for me shall gray-robed Dawn look through
Heaven's windows of the fog, or rain, or dew,
The maiden Dawn with eyes of beautiful blue.”

[I saw sweet Summer go]

I saw sweet Summer go
Into a woodland green,
Unto a sliding stream,
A drowsy water;
With cheeks of sunset glow
Dreaming she seemed to lean,
Dreaming a wild-wood dream,
The wood's wild daughter.

She seemed to smile, then weep,
Then lift, then bow her head,
Deep with its golden hair,
Sad as some maiden
Who loveless falls asleep,
Her eyes to sorrow wed,
Her cheeks as wild flowers fair
With dewdrops laden.

I heard the streamlet moan;
I heard the wood-wind wail;
I heard the forest sob:
“Summer is dying!”
Whiter she lay than stone,
And down each dell and dale
I heard the wild heart-throb
Of Nature sighing:—

“Come back!—Oh, art thou dead,
Thou, thou my sweetest child?
Come back with all thy flowers!”—
But naught she heeded,
Lying with wild-flowered head
In beauty undefiled,
While 'round her sad the Hours
Bowed down and pleaded.

Then through the woodland there,
With ribbons flying gay,
Mocking at Summer's death
With laughter hollow,
Tossing her gipsy hair,
In Romany array,
Autumn, all wild of breath,
Cried, “Follow! follow!”

[When the jeweled lights of the fireflies gleam]

When the jeweled lights of the fireflies gleam
In fairy revelry;
When the waning moon on the forest stream
Looks down, I love to sit and dream,
To dream her again with me.

We speak of the past; of the things once said;
Of the happiness long gone by;

While one blue star burns bright overhead:—
For sweet it is to talk with the dead,
The dead that do not die.

With the dead that are never far away,
That are even as yonder star,
Whose light the darkness, ray on ray,
Makes visible, viewless all the day
Though shining still afar.

Like a lonely beautiful flower wild
In the limitless lands of space,
That star is, blossoming undefiled;
More beautiful for that loneness, mild
It shines on my upturned face.

'Mid the fairy lights of the fireflies,
In the light of the waning moon,
Born of the grief that never dies,
Into my eyes gaze her dark eyes,
The eyes death closed last June.

And I hear her speak, and I hear her sigh:—
For, the dead—they never forget:
Around my heart her white hands lie,
And she kisses my face and asks me why
My cheeks with tears are wet.

And as in life I clasp her and hold,
And meseems it is no dream—
That here we meet, as oft of old,
When the lights of the fireflies' lamps gleam gold,
In the trysting place by the stream.

[Thus in the dusk as ghosts they met]

Thus in the dusk as ghosts they met,
Culling the pansy-violet,
The violet of sweet regret
And memory, dim and dewy wet.

[In dimly lighted cloisters of the heart]

In dimly lighted cloisters of the heart
I met with one whose face was like to thine,
The ghost-face of the love that once I wronged.

[Amid the summer fields and flowers]

Amid the summer fields and flowers,
Let us be children for a day,
Where laughter speeds the joyful hours
And drives dull care away.

[Keep thou my face engraven in thine heart]

Keep thou my face engraven in thine heart,
Now that we part;
Forget me not; or if thou dost forget
Hold me to blame,
Who leave thee now, without one heart's regret,
Forgotten even thy name.

[One milk-white hand she stretched to me]

One milk-white hand she stretched to me,
My heart sobbed, “O beware!”
But both my arms reached out to her
Despite my soul's despair.

University of Virginia Library

1883–1886

[Lead me, thou Bard of Beauty, through those caves]