University of Virginia Library

1901–1905

[There was an old frog]

There was an old frog
Sat on a log
In the light of the crescent moon, aboon,
In the light of the pale new moon:
And he said to the crescent,
“My dear, look pleasant!
I'm going to sing you a tune, real soon;
I am going to sing you a tune.”

[So let Noon lead me till at last she reaches]

So let Noon lead me till at last she reaches
That spot where Evening tarries brown
Beneath the trees, through which the sunset bleaches;
Deep in a wood of ancient oaks and beeches,
Where I may lay me down,
With all the loveliness that Nature teaches,
And watch Night crown her with her starry crown.

[Above the hills the sunset's rolled]

Above the hills the sunset's rolled
One long deep streak of lurid gold,

[The bloodroot leaves of middle March]

The bloodroot leaves of middle March
Lift up their blooms, each one a torch
Of creamy crystal in whose white
The calyx is a golden light.

[Croppings out of unmined gold]

Croppings out of unmined gold,
Of secret wealth no man hath told.

[Moist, rocky places of the spring]

[The hairy stems of the hepatica]

[Deep in the leaves' concealing green]

Deep in the leaves' concealing green
A wood-thrush flutes,
The first thrush seen
Or heard this spring, and straight, meseems,
Its notes take on the attributes
Of mythic fancies and of dreams—
A faun goes piping o'er the roots
And mosses, gliding through dim gleams
And glooms, and while he glides he flutes,
Though still unseen,
'Mid thorny berry and wild-bean.

[The dewberries are blooming now]

[Purple the hills stretch under purple mists]

[Hark how the honey-throated thrush]

Hark how the honey-throated thrush
With notes of limpid harmony
Scatters the noonday's liquid hush,
Taking the woods with witchery.
Hid in the foliage deeps of green
He flutes his wildwood notes serene,
Like some tree-spirit, lost, unseen.

[The ground is strewn with the dead oak-bloom]

The ground is strewn with the dead oak-bloom,
Brown and withered as autumn broom:
And there, in a hollow of the hills,
Like a giant pearl in a giant hand,
Is a white-washed hut where an old man tills
A barren acre of barren land.
An arid acre, that soon shall blow
With wild-rose crimson and elder snow.

[That little worm shall become a fly]

That little worm shall become a fly,
And sing and sting 'neath the summer sky;
Or a gnat, like that which grows in the gall
High on the oak leaf there—a ball
That the elves shall loose and toss over all
Merrily under the next new moon;—
When it'll grow itself wings and a sting and a tune,
Stinging and singing its way into June.

[Invite my soul to rest awhile]

Invite my soul to rest awhile
And dream beneath their azure smile.

[The smell of tannin in the ozoned air]

The smell of tannin in the ozoned air
Under the oaks when the woods are green,
And the scent of the soil and moisture where
The young leaves dangle and make a screen,
Where the hiding wood-nymph combs her hair,
Have breathed me full of the Faun again,
And made me kin to the wind and rain.

[The stealthy squirrel skips along]

[Yesterday among the beeches, to-day among the oaks]

Yesterday among the beeches, to-day among the oaks:
Those with their emerald and gold,
Their amber golds and grays,
These with their blood-dark bronze,
Translucent, frosty reds:
The gold the Autumn dons,
The blood her sad heart sheds,
As slow she goes her ways;
Sheds at each step, that cloaks
Each pool that glimmers cold,
Sunk in the woodland mould,
'Mid the oaks, of whose russets and reds
Winds make their beds,
Bowing their withered heads,
That are old, so old,
Where the Autumn cons,
In her golds and grays,
Her Book of Days.

[The wind is rising and the leaves are blown]

The wind is rising and the leaves are blown,
Wild, swallow-high, reluctant still to fall,
Swarming from hill to hill; and over all
The sere, wild-sounding oaks a voice calls lone,
As if the wood some ancient word were sighing,
Some unintelligible word of beauty dying.

[The dawn comes in clad all in hodden gray]

The dawn comes in clad all in hodden gray,
And, like a tattered cloak its wildness wears,
The ragged rain sweeps stormily this way:
The acorn, like a bullet, strikes the soil;
And blown from its wild pod the milkweed's plume,
Wan in the ghostly and the gusty gloom,
Flares like a lamp hand-hollowed of trembling toil.

[Hylas, that pipe the little buds awake]

[Still are the forests barren of all buds]

Still are the forests barren of all buds,
And all the woods of wildflowers; but, behold!
Within a week or less the invading hosts,
Myriad and many as the stars of heaven,
Shall utterly invade these woodland ways,
When every foot of soil shall show and boast
Its bud or blossom or balsam-beakéd leaf,
Bragging of beauty to the passer-by,
Beggared and bankrupt of all words to praise.

[Come, let us forth and homage her]

Come, let us forth and homage her,
Clothed on with warmth and musk and myrrh,
The indescribable odor wild that clings
Around her like a garment: let us sing
Songs to her, glad as grass and all the things
Exulting in her presence—greening things
And airy that have gotten them new wings:
Come, let us forth and give our praise to Spring.

[My mind's washed clean by the wind that brings]

My mind's washed clean by the wind that brings
The wild warm scent of the woods on its wings,
The racy sweets of the bourgeonings
Of flower and tree and brier that clings.
My head I bare to the winds that blare,
That blow from the purple heart of the cloud,
Now low, now loud,
From the heart of the cloud, like a giant's hair,
Blown everywhere,
Blue-black and low,
Heavy with rain and the pearly glow
Of sunlight gulfing its deeps with snow.—
Blow, winds of spring! O blow, blow, blow!
Caress my brow like fingers fair,
Cool fingers touching my eyes and hair!
Blow, spring winds, blow! O blow, blow, blow!
Blow out of my soul all cark and care!
And out of my heart, aye! out of my heart, despair!

[The wind goes groping among the trees]

The wind goes groping among the trees,
Telling the bees
Where the little buds open that no one sees.
At intervals, as softly cool it blows,
The wild-plum shows
Its bee-swarm'd clusters 'twixt the wood's dark rows.

[The sluggish snake now basks his uncoiled length]

The sluggish snake now basks his uncoiled length
Beside the windings of the water-course;
With torpid beady eyes he lies and dreams
Where warm the sunlight sleeps. Near by him claws
Of some strange beast have marked the furrowed sand
As with deep talonings of mighty rage
Here on the wild road where it fords the stream.

[Rocked by the winds of March the trees become]

Rocked by the winds of March the trees become,
Each one a maddened pendulum
Swayed every way as if in time
To some wild music, roaring rhyme
Shouted from storm-tossed hill to hill,
Amid the forests that are never still.

[The gold-green blooms of the spicebush burn]

The gold-green blooms of the spicebush burn
Lighting the wood at every turn;
Like the starry tufts of the sassafras,
Whose fragrance thrills us as we pass,
From out their patents of gold they spill
A faint aroma that haunts the hill.

[Placid and pure and clean the wild-phlox blooms]

Placid and pure and clean the wild-phlox blooms
Make glad the hillsides and deep-wooded banks
Of wandering creeks. Beneath the old, gray beech
The Mayapples, in myriad colonies,
Advance-guards of the wildflowers' following hosts,
Lift up their green-and-umber tents of leaves,
Each unrolled tent tipped with its furled-up flag,
Its pea-like bud, a knob of delicate green,
Wherein the milk-white,—blazoned deep with gold,—
Of its broad bloom, its banner's packed away.
While at the wood's edge, at the turn o' the lane,
A clear, a chilly crimson in its keys,
Its million blooms, the maple fairly glows,
Making a crystal blur of rosy gloom;
Wherein the bluebird, like a sapphire closed
In an enormous ruby, sits and sings;
Upon his back and on his wayward wings
The lapis-lazuli o' the April sky.

[Who is it knows]

Who is it knows
How the huckleberry grows,
Blooms and blows?—
Only the bird that sings and sings,
Waving its wings,
Saying, “Come see it where it swings!
Ruddy green and amber rose,
See, oh, see,
In honor of Spring,
Under this tree,
See how they ring
Their tiny bells, that cluster out,
Silvery red, in a rosy rout.”

[The liquid note of the thrush—what words can describe it]

The liquid note of the thrush—what words can describe it?
Above me now I hear it, dropping its globéd harmony,
Golden-bubbled, crystalline clear, indescribably deep.
Questioningly, answeringly its music falls,
Notes of antiphonal gold,
Full of youth and joy;
A tree-spirit, seemingly,
Voicing the innocence, the exuberance, the beauty of invisible,
Inviolable things; wild myths that populate
The world of the woods and streams.
Pensively, hopefully now it pleads,
Pleads for the dreams that haunt the hearts of the trees,
The soul of the woodland—
Dreams that it sees from its leafy height,
Its breezy eyrie of green,
Dreams that it sees and knows.
And now for me its music, too, takes form,
Visible, material form:
And I seem to see—
A presence, young with the youth that never ages,
A Faun, a Spirit, slender and naked as Spring,
Deep in the forest, approaching and now retreating,
Blowing his flute of flowers,
Gleaming, vanishing far in the verdurous glooms:
A Spirit, happy with all that is happy,
Communicated joy of all that is beauty,
The wild, wild beauty it drew from the breasts of its mother,
Its beautiful mother, Nature:
A phantom supernal in loveliness, responsive and tender,
Diaphanous, hyaline, translucently green and golden,
Golden and green like the sound of a thrush's fluting:
A form of light like that which shimmers and shades
Under the day-deep boughs of the myriad beeches;
Flitting, wavering now like a joy that dances,
Silent, alone in the heart of the forest,
Shimmering, glimmering here like the ray that stars the ripples,
Sun-speared, flashing and fading on woodland waters,
Falling, calling, foamy-lipped, like a Naiad,
Lost in the leaves, the remotest deeps of the forest.
Like the rain that tips the point of a poplar leaf,
Trembling, a liquid star, to its twinkling fall,
There it glances and glints, tinkling with silver the silence;
There it hazes like heat that haunts the summer meadows,
To whose kisses the wildflowers open their wondering and fragrant eyes:
A glimmering form it leads me, musical ever of motion,
From wildwood place to place,
Retreating, advancing, luring from vista to vista,
Far and far in the forest, the haunted deeps of the forest,
To slay me there, perhaps, at last,
At last with some last, long and lovelier note,
Ringing as gold
And deeper in magic than the myths of old.

[The woodpecker! hear him, the redcapped]

The woodpecker! hear him, the redcapped,
Driving home his bill!
Driving deliberately home his bill
In the top limb of yonder tree.
Swiftly, instantly, repeatedly it sounds,
Resonant, distinct in the hollow wood.—
What a prospect from such an outlook,
What a world of limb and leaf,
Ever moving, restless in its rest,
Must that be from where he raps!
That tallest giant of them all,
That poplar there
Where so unconcernedly he clings.
What exultation of height!
What intoxication of cloud and sky!
Of wind and rapture in the blowing hair of the tree!
Its rocking and nodding head!—
Oh, that I too had wings!

[The crawfish in his tower of ooze and clay]

The crawfish in his tower of ooze and clay—
What knows he of the day!
Like some crabb'd misanthrope,
Sans joy, sans hope,
He sits within his pit
Seeing no part of heaven, that azures over it.

[Hag-tapers bow their heads i' the wind]

Hag-tapers bow their heads i' the wind
Like candles the witches bear; and, thinned
As the moonlight is where a soul has sinned,
Their blossoms look; and a flower red
Blooms near them, shaped like a viper's head,
A blood-blotched flower, like a symbol pinned
To the breast of a gipsy dagger-dead,
A damsel frail as a flower, oh!

[Here where the twilight-colored trunks of trees]

Here where the twilight-colored trunks of trees,
Mottled with lichen, arch the twilight way,
Where every crooked bough, swayed by the breeze,
Now seems a knotted serpent, viperous gray,
Because of one whose flat and horrible head,
Reared in my woodland way, I crushed to-day,
Fanging with poison its own side instead
Of me advancing where unseen it lay.

[Silvered with sun and rain the hills and vales]

Silvered with sun and rain the hills and vales,
O'er which a ragged rim of thunder trails,
Show like some lunar landscape, pearl and frost,
Crystaled with moon-dust and with star-drift crossed,
Misted of silver and in silver lost.

[The old tree, on which the man was hanged, sighed to itself]

The old tree, on which the man was hanged, sighed to itself:—
“Alas! why am I made an instrument of violent death?
What have I done that I should be so punished?
Made a participant in such a crime?
I, whose life has evermore been one of peace and love:
Whose mind has ever been employed with thoughts of mercy:
Whose arms have always been stretched forth
In kindness and protection,
Sheltering the baby blossoms,
The shy, the tender, the timid,
The wild things of the woods,
That love to nestle and lie at my mossy foot:
I, whose limbs have unselfishly made,
Year after year,
A quiet cirque of coolth and comfort for the weary traveler,
Hot and dusty from the road,
Refreshing and restoring him with the soothing whisper,
The lullabying lilt of my leaves:
My verdurous bosom the home and haunt of unstudied song,—
Birds and breezes rejoicing in its sheltering and maternal amplitude.
Ah me! henceforward will Beauty and Love avoid me,
Frequent visitors before!
And Fear and Hate tenant in my boughs.
The Dryad, who dwelt in my heart,
Its beautiful and innocent inhabitant, is fled away.
No more will the loveliness of things within me and about me
Be as it was before.
Accursed am I among trees!
Accursed with the curse of murder!
The contact and contamination of crime!
Accursed with the stigma of slaughter!
And accursed shall I ever remain through the crime of man,
The most cruel, the most destructive, the most ferocious of all animals.
Would now that some devastating bolt,
Blindingly launched from yonder approaching cloud,
Might fell me, thunderingly, to earth!
Making me really that which I feel that I am become—
A horrible thing, twisted and gnarled and black,
Hideously crippled and scarred,
Blasted and branded, as the brow of Cain,
With withering, with elemental fire:
Laying me prone; or leaving a towering and tortured trunk,
A blackened shape,
In the shuddering and rejecting forest—
A trysting place for Murder,
A roost for obscene things,
Buzzards, carrion-crows, and owls.”

[Where like an angry tyrant roars the sea]

Where like an angry tyrant roars the sea,
Pulling his yeasty beard, upon his throne
Of iron crags; and where, like storm-lights strewn,
The baleful stars redden tempestuously,
I see him stand, blind Winter, all alone,
Wild hair and beard, like snow, about him blown.

[What boots it to keep saying]

[Until we meet again]

[Where bloomed the rose but yesterday]

[The climbing cricket clings]

The climbing cricket clings,
Moving its vibrant wings,
To some green brier amid the fields turned sere:
And to me, dreaming here,
Its plaintive music seems
An utterance of dreams
And it itself lute of the dying Year.

[My soul is sick of many things]

My soul is sick of many things,
But mainly of the word,
The word of hope day never brings;
That like some beautiful bird
Above me and beyond me wings,
Yet nevermore is heard.

[Ah, not in vain]

[A thin fall rain]

[Ephemeral gold]

Ephemeral gold,
Deciduous emerald,
And crumbling ruby all the forests old
Fling to the shining wind, deep-rolled
Like some loud music through them:
Majestic music, sad and manifold,
The music of that ancient skald,
October called,
Who sits wild chanting to them.

[The scarlet and the gold and bronze]

The scarlet and the gold and bronze,
The lemon, rose and gray,
The splendors that October dons,
Seen from this hilltop far away,
Like some wild bugle blast, far blown,—
The visible sound of something wild, unknown,—
Crimsonly calling, shake my blood that thrills;
Commanding me to follow
Beyond the farthest hills;
Exultantly to follow,
Through flaming holt and hollow,
Whereso their music wills;
The trumpet-pealing fires
Of trees and vines and briers,
Whose leaves like notes are falling,
The clarion color calling
My heart beyond the hills.

[Ochre-colored broom-sedge]

Ochre-colored broom-sedge
Yellowing desolate ways,
Fields, the black thorns hedge,
Bleached with sodden strays,
Strays of leaves and flowers of dead, forgotten days.

[In the forest by the rain-wild creeks]