Flower Pieces and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Where mountains round a lonely dale
Our cottage-roof enclose,
Come night or morn, the hissing pail
With fragrant cream o'erflows;
And roused at break of day from sleep,
And cheerly trudging hither,—
A scythe-sweep, and a scythe-sweep,
We mow the grass together.

The fog drawn up the mountain-side
And scatter'd flake by flake,
The chasm of blue above grows wide,
And richer blue the lake;
Gay sunlights o'er the hillocks creep,
And join for golden weather,—
A scythe-sweep, and a scythe-sweep,
We mow the dale together.

The goodwife stirs at five, we know,
The master soon comes round,
And many swaths must lie a-row
Ere breakfast-horn shall sound;
Sweet vernal-grass, and foxtail deep,
The spike or silvery feather,—
A scythe-sweep and a scythe-sweep,
We mow them down together.

The noon-tide brings its welcome rest
Our toil-wet brows to dry;
Anew with merry stave and jest
The shrieking hone we ply.
White falls the brook from steep to steep
Among the rocks and heather,—
A scythe-sweep and a scythe-sweep,
We mow the dale together.

For dial, see, our shadows turn;
Low lies the stately mead:
A scythe, an hour-glass, and an urn—
All flesh is grass, we read.
To-morrow's sky may laugh or weep,
To Heav'n we leave it whether:
A scythe-sweep, and a scythe-sweep,
We've done our task together.

ON THE SUNNY SHORE.

Checquer'd with woven shadows as I lay
Among the grass, blinking the watery gleam,—
I saw an Echo-Spirit in his bay,
Most idly floating in the noontide beam.
Slow heaved his filmy skiff, and fell, with sway
Of ocean's giant pulsing, and the Dream,
Buoy'd like the young moon on a level stream
Of greenish vapour at decline of day,
Swam airily,—watching the distant flocks
Of sea-gulls, whilst a foot in careless sweep
Touch'd the clear-trembling cool with tiny shocks,
Faint-circling; till at last he dropt asleep,
Lull'd by the hush-song of the glittering deep
Lap-lapping drowsily the heated rocks.

THE WAYSIDE WELL.

Greet thee kindly, Wayside Well,
In thy hedge of roses!
Whither drawn by soothing spell,
Weary foot reposes.

With a welcome fresh and green
Wave thy border grasses,
By the dusty traveller seen,
Sighing as he passes.

Cup of no Circean bliss,
Charity of summer,
Making happy with a kiss
Every meanest comer!

Morning, too, and eventide,
Without stint or measure,
Cottage households near and wide
Share thy liquid treasure.

Fair the greeting face ascends,
Like a naiad's daughter,
To the peasant lass that bends
To thy trembling water.

When a lad has brought her pail
Down the twilight meadow,
Tender falls the whisper'd tale,
Soft the double shadow.

Clear as childhood's is thy look,
Nature seems to pet thee,
Fierce July that drains the brook
Hath no power to fret thee.

Shelter'd cool and free from smirch
In thy cavelet shady,
O'er thee in a silver birch
Stoops a forest lady.

Mirror to the Star of Eve,
Maiden shy and slender,
Matron Moon thy depths receive,
Globed in mellow splendour.

Bounteous Spring! for ever own
Undisturb'd thy station;
Not to thirsty lips alone
Serving mild donation.

Never come the newt or frog,
Pebble thrown in malice,
Mud or wither'd leaves, to clog
Or defile thy chalice.

Heaven be still within thy ken,
Through the veil thou wearest,—
Glimpsing clearest, as with men,
When the boughs are barest.

HALF-DREAMING.

In morning mist and dream I lay,
And saw, methought, two Babes at play,
In a green garden, girl and boy;
With Lucy painting in her chair,
The sunshine catching golden hair
At moments when she lifts her head
To look at these, and share their joy.
Kind happy Dream!—Ah, sting of woe!
This used to be, long time ago.
The Mother and the Babes are dead,
And I am old and lonely: fled
Life's pleasure now, itself a dream.

How long a dream lasts, who can say,
Or how it drifts and intershifts?
I woke, I saw the sunny beam,
I heard the shrieking of the swifts,
Then flung my curtain back. Below,
Two merry faces all aglow
Look up, ‘Good morning, dear Papa!
Mamma is coming home to-day.’

Grant us to taste,
Ye Mystic Powers,
Our happy hours,—
O how they haste!

EVEY.

Bud and leaflet, opening slowly,
Woo'd with tears by winds of Spring
Now, of June persuaded wholly,
Perfumes, flow'rs, and shadows bring.

Evey, in the linden alley,
All alone I met to-day,
Tripping to the sunny valley
Spread across with new-mown hay.

Brown her soft curls, sunbeam-sainted,
Golden in the wavering flush;
Darker brown her eyes are, painted
Eye and fringe with one soft brush.

Through the leaves a careless comer,
Never nymph of fount or tree
Could have press'd the floor of summer
With a lighter foot than she.

Can this broad hat, fasten'd under
With a bright blue ribbon's flow,
Change my pet so much, I wonder,
Of a month or two ago?

Half too changed to speak I thought her,
Till the pictured silence broke,
Sweet and clear as dropping water,
In to words she sung or spoke.

Few her words; yet, like a sister,
Trustfully she look'd and smiled;
'Twas but in my soul I kiss'd her,
As I used to kiss the child.

Shadows, which are not of sadness,
Touch her eyes, and brow above.
As pale wild roses dream of redness,
Dreams her innocent heart of love.

AN EVENING.

A Sunset's mounded cloud;
A diamond evening-star;
Sad blue hills afar;
Love in his shroud.

Scarcely a tear to shed;
Hardly a word to say;
The end of a summer day;
Sweet Love dead.

THE QUEEN OF THE FOREST.

Beautiful, beautiful Queen of the Forest,
How art thou hidden so wondrous deep?
Bird never sung there, fay never morriced,
All the trees are asleep.
Nigh the drizzling waterfall
Plumèd ferns wave and wither;
Voices from the woodlands call,
‘Hither, O hither!’
Calling all the summer day,
Through the woodlands, far away.

Who by the rivulet loiters and lingers,
Tranced by a mirror, a murmur, a freak;
Thrown where the grass's cool fine fingers
Play with his dreamful cheek?
Cautious creatures gliding by,
Mystic sounds fill his pleasure,
Tangled roof inlaid with sky,
Flowers, heaps of treasure:
Wandering slowly all the day,
Through the woodlands, far away.

Late last night, betwixt moonlight and morning,
Came She, unthought-of, and stood by his bed:
A kiss for love, and a kiss for warning,
A kiss for trouble and dread.
Now her flitting fading gleam
Haunts the woodlands wide and lonely;
Now, a half-remember'd dream
For his comrade only,
He shall stray the livelong day
Through the forest, far away.

Dare not the hiding Enchantress to follow!
Hearken the yew, he hath secrets of hers.
The gray owl stirs in an oaktree's hollow,
The wind in the gloomy firs.
Down among those dells of green,
Glimpses, whispers, run to wile thee;
Waking eyes have nowhere seen
Her that would beguile thee—
Draw thee on, till death of day,
Through the dusk woods, far away.

IN A BROKEN TOWER.

The tangling wealth by June amass'd
Left rock and ruin vaguely seen;
Thick ivy-cables held them fast,
Light boughs descended, floating green.

Slow turn'd the stair, a breathless height,
And far above it set me free,
When all the golden fan of light
Was closing down into the sea.

A window half-way up the wall
It led to; and so high was that,
The tallest trees were not so tall
That they could reach to where I sat.

Aloft within the moulder'd Tower
Dark ivy fringed its round of sky,
Where slowly, in the deepening hour,
The first faint stars unveil'd on high.

The rustling of the foliage dim,
The murmur of the cool gray tide,
With tears that trembled on the brim,
An echo sad to these I sigh'd.

O Sea, thy ripple's mournful tune!—
The cloud along the sunset sleeps,
The phantom of the golden moon
Is kindled in thy quivering deeps,

Oh, mournfully!—and I to fill,
Fix'd in a ruin-window strange,
Some countless period, watching still
A moon, a sea, that never change!

The guided orb is mounting slow;
The duteous wave is ebbing fast;
And now, as from the niche I go,
A shadow joins the shadowy past.

Farewell, dim Ruins, tower and life,
Sadly enrich the distant view!
And welcome, scenes of toil and strife;
To-morrow's sun arises new.

AFTER SUNSET.

The vast and solemn company of clouds
Around the Sun's death, lit, incarnadined,
Cool into ashy wan; as Night enshrouds
The level pasture, creeping up behind
Through voiceless vales, o'er lawn and purpled hill
And hazèd mead, her mystery to fulfil.
Cows low from far-off farms; the loitering wind
Sighs in the hedge, you hear it if you will,—
Tho' all the wood, alive atop with wings
Lifting and sinking through the leafy nooks,
Seethes with the clamour of a thousand rooks.
Now every sound at length is hush'd away.
These few are sacred moments. One more Day
Drops in the shadowy gulf of bygone things.

IN THE DUSK.

Welcome, friendly stars, one by one, two by two!
Voices of the waterfall toning in the air;
And the wavy landscape-outlines blurr'd with falling dew,
As my rapture is with sadness, because I may not share,
And double it by sharing it with thee.
—Cloudy fire dies away on the sea.

Calm shadowy Earth! she lies musing like a saint;
Wearing for a halo the pure circlet of the moon;
From the mountain breathes the night-wind, steadily, tho' faint;
As I am breathing softly, ‘Ah! might some heav'nly boon
Bestow thee, my Belov'd One, to my side!’
—Like a full, happy heart flows the tide.

ÆOLIAN HARP.

O pale green sea,
With long pale purple clouds above—
What lies in me like weight of love?
What dies in me
With utter grief, because there comes no sign
Through the sun-raying West, or on the dim sea-line?

O salted air,
Blown round the rocky headlands chill—
What calls me there from cove and hill?
What falls me fair
From Thee, the first-born of the youthful night?
Or in the waves is coming through the dusk twilight?

O yellow Star,
Quivering upon the rippling tide—
Sendest so far to one that sigh'd?
Bendest thou, Star,
Above where shadows of the dead have rest
And constant silence, with a message from the blest?

ON THE TWILIGHT POND.

A shadowy fringe the fir-trees make,
Where sunset light hath been;
The liquid thrills to one gold flake,
And Hesperus is seen;
Our boat and we, not half awake,
Go drifting down the pond,
While slowly calls the rail, ‘Crake-crake,’
From meadow-flats beyond.

This happy, circling, bounded view
Embraces us with home;
To far worlds, kindling in the blue,
Our upward thoughts may roam;
Whence, with the veil of scented dew
That makes the earth so sweet,
A touch of astral brightness too,
A peace—which is complete.

UNKNOWN BELOV'D ONE.

O unknown Belov'd One! to the perfect season
Branches in the lawn make drooping bow'rs;
Vase and plot burn scarlet, gold, and azure;
Honeysuckles wind the tall gray turret,
And pale passion-flow'rs.
Come thou, come thou to my lonely thought,
O Unknown Belov'd One.

Now, at evening twilight, dusky dew down-wavers,
Soft stars crown the grove-encircled hill;
Breathe the new-mown meadows, broad and misty;
Through the heavy grass the rail is talking;
All beside is still.
Trace with me the wandering avenue,
Thou Unknown Belov'd One.

In the mystic realm, and in the time of visions,
I thy lover have no need to woo;
There I hold thy hand in mine, thou dearest,
And thy soul in mine, and feel its throbbing,
Tender, deep, and true;
Then my tears are love, and thine are love,
Thou Unknown Belov'd One?

Is thy voice a wavelet on the listening darkness?
Are thine eyes unfolding from their veil?
Wilt thou come before the signs of winter—
Days that shred the bough with trembling fingers,
Nights that weep and wail?
Art thou Love indeed, or art thou Death,
O Unknown Belov'd One?

SERENADE.

Oh, hearing sleep, and sleeping hear,
The while we dare to call thee dear,
So may thy dreams be good, altho'
The loving power thou dost not know.
As music parts the silence,—lo!
Through heaven the stars begin to peep,
To comfort us that darkling pine
Because those fairer lights of thine
Have set into the Sea of Sleep.
Yet closèd still thine eyelids keep;
And may our voices through the sphere
Of Dreamland all as softly rise
As through these shadowy rural dells,
Where bashful Echo somewhere dwells,
And touch thy spirit to as soft replies.
May peace from gentle guardian skies,
Till watches of the dark are worn,
Surround thy bed, and joyous morn
Makes all the chamber rosy bright!
Good-night!—From far-off fields is borne
The drowsy Echo's faint ‘Good-night,’—
Good-night! Good-night!