University of Virginia Library

I

Sounds of children at their play,
Laughter dropping young and clear
As dew from out the flowers of May:
Murmured songs and wings in flight,
When Summer takes with warmth the year:
Far off thunder, never near,
Dreamy with a strange delight,
Drowsy with a thrill of fear,
And the sound of rain at night—
All are pleasant to the ear.—
Then the wood-bird's plaintive call
Overhead at evenfall:
Insects singing in the weeds
When the dusk is blue and still,
And the full moon breasts the hill
Like a sylvan from her rill;
And the wind among the reeds
Whispers, and they stir and fill
Silence with a glimmering sound
As of spirit things around,
Twinkling mist-like o'er the meads,
Spilling earth with dewy beads:
Mellow music of the frog,
Where the night her elf-lights leads,—
Faeryland and dreams ajog
With their torches, drums and reeds,
Dancing over brook and bog:
Or where waters, bright with moon,
Sigh of sleep a faery tune,
Dreamy stir of boughs of June.—
These are pleasant to the ear,
Common ear;
Things the Earth's old heart holds dear.

II

The face of one we love near by,
And friendship's smile to which we cleave
Through life's long mutability,
Are pleasant to the eye.—
Gold-flickerings on an August eve
In one rose-cloud the day may leave,
In dominating majesty,
Constant in its inconstancy,
To hold the sunset and one star,—
A lamp a sylphid swings afar
In caverns dim of porphyry,
Or grottoes pale of airy pearl;—
How pleasant to the eye!—
Cloud-Alps whose battlements unfurl
Heat-lightnings; and along which fly
The colors of a quiet sky,
That lift the thought to things on high,
Beyond this world that we perceive;
And waken in the heart a sigh,
With a sweet yearning still to grieve;—
Colors in a quiet sky;—
Cascades falling, gleam in gleam,
Where the forest shadows dream,
And the wildflowers, eye to eye,
In the stream gaze slenderly:
Firefly glimmers, amber-green,
Over swards dim-elfed with dew,—
Links that torch the faery queen
On her bat-wing through the blue,
When the crescent moon hangs new;—
Or, upon a winter's night,
Glancing through a window-light,
Seen afar, the fire's red glow,
Elf-like dancing on the snow,
Leading back to long-ago:—
All are pleasant to the eye,
Common eye;
Things the old Earth holds us by.

III

Childhood's breath, divine with health,
And heavenly sweet as hydromel;
Cheeks, whose roses blush in stealth
And of the heart's young secret tell:
Rain-odors blown from fields of hay,
New-reaped and warm, at close of day:
And from the orchard, near the well,
Fruit-musk of ripeness full that fell,
With muffled thud, through heavy boughs;
And honeyed odors, sweet-asway,
Bee-clung and bruised, beside the way,—
These are pleasant to the smell:
And scents that sweeten an old house,
That hugs its garden to its heart,
And makes itself of it a part,
Inseparably; the ancient spouse
Of rose and pink and hollyhock,
And many a spicy-smelling stock,
Round which the moths in ermine dart
When twilight calls them forth, and eve's
First star looks trembling through the leaves,
And up the lane come slow the cows,
Tinkling a dim and mellow bell,
What time the wood-smoke tells of home,
And in the woods the leafy loam
Breathes of the autumn soon to come:—
These are pleasant to the smell,
Common smell,
Things that hold us like a spell.

IV

A child's soft hair beneath the hand,
Through which the heart may understand
The innocence which means so much
To all we've longed for and have planned;—
The thoughts, the faery fancies,—all
That keeps our hearts in childhood's thrall,
Subservient to and glad of such.
A child's soft hair beneath the hand—
How pleasant to the touch,
And intimate with love's demand!
Then water-lilies, plucked from cool
Dark depths of some old woodland pool,
Where all the shadows wild remain,
Unmoving, dreaming steadily,
As in dark eyes a mystery,
Elusive with the beautiful:
These are pleasant; and the rain
On orchard blossoms, sweet a-strain,
Through which, when Spring comes windily,
One seems to feel he clasps her there,
Beauty, the hoiden, wild as fair,
Her rose-leaf lips on his again,
While 'thwart his face blows wet her hair:—
And then, when dusk has dewed the heat,
The feel of grass beneath the feet,
As when in childhood brown and bare
Along the summer we did fare,
Without a fear, without a care:—
The feel of grass!—How young and sweet
The feel of grass beneath the feet!—
Ah, how pleasant to the touch,
Common touch!
Things of earth that help us much.

V

Water from a mountain spring
Out of crystal bubbling:
Wells, where wild the ferns are laced,
And the mountain blossoms cling—
Ah, how pleasant to the taste!
Dew within a wildflower's throat,
Round whose bloom the wild bees sing,
Hummingbirds flash out and float:
Sweetness, in which may be traced
Spice of wildness, tang of clove,
Color even, interwove,—
These are pleasant to the taste.
Wine and pungence of the grape,
Crushed with purple on the lips;
And such sap as Summer sips
From a leaf-cup or a flower,
Or the berry that she strips,
Dewy at the morning hour,
From her briar-tangled bower;
These are pleasant to the lips:
Racy ripeness; drowsy drips;
Honey of the bag o' the bee;
And the cool acidity
Of the sorrel: tastes that teased
Childhood's palate; sweet and sour;
All that once our playtime pleased:
These are pleasant to the taste,
Common taste,
Things where earth its name hath traced.

VI

These are pleasures that to life
Bring no strife,
But content and quiet days,
In God's praise;
Making here, in many ways,
Something even
That approaches near to Heaven:
These be common to all life,
Man and wife;
Common to all human hearts,—
Hearts, whose tastes are clean and sane:
Simple joys, that still obtain;
That comprise within their parts
Nothing which life may disdain;
Simple joys, and pleasures plain,
Common to all human hearts,
Souls that know no modern arts,
Mad desires that vex the brain,
Futile, volatile, and vain
As the castles built in Spain,
Kingdoms on eidolon charts. ...
Things that help the human heart,—
Common heart,—
And are an undying part
Of the life that's clean and sane:
Simple life and quiet heart—
God be thanked that such remain!