Nature

O wayward rose, why dost thou wreathe so high,
Wasting thyself in sweet-breath'd ecstasy?

"The pulses of the wind my life uplift,
And through my sprays I feel the sunlight sift;

"And all my fibres, in a quick consent
Entwined, aspire to fill their heavenward bent.

"I feel the shaking of the far-off sea,
And all things growing blend their life with me:

"When men and women on me look, there glows
Within my veins a life not of the rose.

"Then let me grow, until I touch the sky,
And let me grow and grow until I die!"

So, every year, the sweet rose shooteth higher,
And scales the roof upon its wings of fire,

And pricks the air, in lovely discontent,
With thorns that question still of its intent.

But when it reached th...

I.

Misty are the far-off hills
And misty are the near;
Purple hazes dimly lie
Veiling hill and field and sky,
Marshes where the hylas cry,
Like a myriad bills
Piping, "Spring is here!"

II.

A redbird flits,
Then sings and sits
And calls to his mate,
"She is late! she is late!
How long, how long must the woodland wait
For its emerald plumes
And its jewelled blooms?
She is late! she is late!"

III.

Along the stream,
A cloudy gleam,
The pussy-willows, tufted white,
Make of each tree a mighty light;
Pearl and silver and glimmering gray
They tassel the boughs of the willow way;
And as they swing they seem to say,
With mouths of bloom
And warm perfume:

IV.

"Awake! awa...

(TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES)


Strange spell of youth for age, and age for youth,
Affinity between two forms of truth! -
As if the dawn and sunset watched each other,
Like and unlike as children of one mother
And wondering at the likeness. Ardent eyes
Of young men see the prophecy arise
Of what their lives shall be when all is told;
And, in the far-off glow of years called old,
Those other eyes look back to catch a trace
Of what was once their own unshadowed grace.
But here in our dear poet both are blended -
Ripe age begun, yet golden youth not ended; -
Even as his song the willowy scent of spring
Doth blend with autumn's tender mellowing,
And mixes praise with satire, tears with fun,
In strains that ever delicately run;
So musical and wise, page...

Trees and the menace of night;
Then a long, lonely, leaden mere
Backed by a desolate fell
As by a spectral battlement; and then,
Low-brooding, interpenetrating all,
A vast, grey, listless, inexpressive sky,
So beggared, so incredibly bereft
Of starlight and the song of racing worlds
It might have bellied down upon the Void
Where as in terror Light was beginning to be.

Hist!    In the trees fulfilled of night
(Night and the wretchedness of the sky)
Is it the hurry of the rain?
Or the noise of a drive of the Dead
Streaming before the irresistible Will
Through the strange dusk of this, the Debateable Land
Between their place and ours?

Like the forgetfulness
Of the work-a-day world made visible,
A mist falls from the melancholy sky:

I.

A Sea of onyx are the skies,
Cloud-islanded with fire;
Such nacre-colored flame as dyes
A sea-shell's rosy spire;
And at its edge one star sinks slow,
Burning, into the overglow.

II.

Save for the cricket in the grass,
Or passing bird that twitters,
The world is hushed. Like liquid glass
The soundless river glitters
Between the hills that hug and hold
Its beauty like a hoop of gold.

III.

The glory deepens; and, meseems,
A vasty canvas, painted
With revelations of God's dreams
And visions symbol-sainted,
The west is, that each night-cowled hill
Kneels down before in worship still.

IV.

There is no thing to wake unrest;
No sight or sound to jangle
The peace that evening in the bre...

(From the French of Stéphane Mallarmé.)


I would immortalize these nymphs: so bright
Their sunlit colouring, so airy light,
It floats like drowsing down. Loved I a dream?
My doubts, born of oblivious darkness, seem
A subtle tracery of branches grown
The tree's true self - proving that I have known
No triumph, but the shadow of a rose.
But think. These nymphs, their loveliness ... suppose
They bodied forth your senses' fabulous thirst?
Illusion! which the blue eyes of the first,
As cold and chaste as is the weeping spring,
Beget: the other, sighing, passioning,
Is she the wind, warm in your fleece at noon?
No, through this quiet, when a weary swoon
Crushes and chokes the latest faint essay
Of morning, cool against the encroaching day,
There is n...

I hear a voice low in the sunset woods;
    Listen, it says: "Decay, decay, decay!"
I hear it in the murmuring of the floods,
    And the wind sighs it as it flies away.
Autumn is come; seest thou not in the skies,
The stormy light of his fierce lurid eyes?
Autumn is come; his brazen feet have trod,
Withering and scorching, o'er the mossy sod.
The fainting year sees her fresh flowery wreath
Shrivel in his hot grasp; his burning breath
Dries the sweet water-springs that in the shade
Wandering along, delicious music made.
A flood of glory hangs upon the world,
Summer's bright wings shining ere they are furled.

'O dreary life,' we cry, 'O dreary life!'
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle! Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards
Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory: O thou God of old,
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these!
But so much patience as a blade of grass
Grows by, contented through the heat and cold.

I.

Mother of light! how fairly dost thou go
Over those hoary crests, divinely led! -
Art thou that huntress of the silver bow,
Fabled of old? Or rather dost thou tread
Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below,
Like the wild Chamois from her Alpine snow,
Where hunter never climb'd, - secure from dread?
How many antique fancies have I read
Of that mild presence! and how many wrought!
Wondrous and bright,
Upon the silver light,
Chasing fair figures with the artist, Thought!


II.

What art thou like? - Sometimes I see thee ride
A far-bound galley on its perilous way,
Whilst breezy waves toss up their silvery spray; -
Sometimes behold thee glide,
Cluster'd by all thy family of stars,
Like a lone widow, through the welkin wide,<...

How many buds in this warm light
    Have burst out laughing into leaves!
And shall a day like this be gone
    Before I seek the wood that holds
The richest music known?

Too many times have nightingales
    Wasted their passion on my sleep,
And brought repentance soon:
    But this one night I'll seek the woods,
The nightingale, and moon.

The vat-like cups of the fungus, filled
With the rain that fell last night,
Are casks of wine that the elves distilled
For revels the moon did light.

The owlet there with her "Who-oh-who,"
And the frog with his "All is right,"
Could tell a tale if they wanted to
Of what took place last night.

In that hollow beech, where the wood decays,
Their toadstool houses stand;
A little village of drabs and grays,
Cone-roofed, of Faeryland.

That moth, which gleams like a lichen there,
Is one of an elfin band,
That whisks away if you merely dare
To try to understand.

The snail, that slides on that mushroom's top,
And the slug on its sleepy trail,
Wax fat on the things the elves let drop
At feast in the moonlight pale.

The w...

How sweet is every lengthening day,
And every change of weather,
When Summer comes, on skies blue grey,
And brings her hosts together,
Her flocks of birds, her crowds of flowers,
Her sunny-shining water!
I dearly love the woodbine bowers,
That hide the Shepherd's Daughter--
In gown of green or brown or blue,
The Shepherd's Daughter, leal and true.

How bonny is her lily breast!
How sweet her rosy face!
She'd give my aching bosom rest,
Where love would find its place.
While earth is green, and skies are blue,
And sunshine gilds the water,
While Summer's sweet and Nature true,
I'll love the Shepherd's Daughter--
Her nut brown hair, her clear bright eye,
My daily thought, my only joy.

She's such a simple, sweet young thing,
Dre...

    Wind waves the reeds by the river,
    Grey sky lids the leaden water.
    Ducks fly low across the water,
    Three flying: one quacks sadly.

    Grey are the sky and the water,
    Green the lost ribbons of reed-beds,
    Small in the silence a black boat
    Floats upon wide pale mirrors.

Out of the past the dim leaves spoke to me
The thoughts of Pindar with a voice so sweet
Hyblæan bees seemed swarming my retreat
Around the reedy well of Poesy.
I closed the book. Then, knee to neighbor knee,
Sat with the soul of Plato, to repeat
Doctrines, till mine seemed some Socratic seat
High on the summit of Philosophy.
Around the wave of one Religion taught
Her first rude children. From the stars that burned
Above the mountained other, Science learned
The first vague lessons of the work she wrought.
Daughters of God, in whom we still behold
The Age of Iron and the Age of Gold.

Her voice is like clear water
That drips upon a stone
In forests far and silent
Where Quiet plays alone.

Her thoughts are like the lotus
Abloom by sacred streams
Beneath the temple arches
Where Quiet sits and dreams.

Her kisses are the roses
That glow while dusk is deep
In Persian garden closes
Where Quiet falls asleep.

Pan came out of the woods one day,
His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray,
The gray of the moss of walls were they,
And stood in the sun and looked his fill
At wooded valley and wooded hill.

He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand,
On a height of naked pasture land;
In all the country he did command
He saw no smoke and he saw no roof.
That was well! and he stamped a hoof.

His heart knew peace, for none came here
To this lean feeding save once a year
Someone to salt the half-wild steer,
Or homespun children with clicking pails
Who see so little they tell no tales.

He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
For sylvan sign that the blue jay's screech
And the whimper of hawks beside the sun
Were...

Aerial Rock, whose solitary brow
From this low threshold daily meets my sight;
When I step forth to hail the morning light;
Or quit the stars with a lingering farewell, how
Shall Fancy pay to thee a grateful vow?
How, with the Muse's aid, her love attest?
By planting on thy naked head the crest
Of an imperial Castle, which the plough
Of ruin shall not touch. Innocent scheme!
That doth presume no more than to supply
A grace the sinuous vale and roaring stream
Want, through neglect of hoar Antiquity.
Rise, then, ye votive Towers! and catch a gleam
Of golden sunset, ere it fade and die.

This April sun has wakened into cheer
    The wintry paths of thought, and tinged with gold
    These threadbare leaves of fancy brown and old.
This is for us the wakening of the year
    And May's sweet breath will draw the waiting soul
    To where in distance lies the longed-for goal.

The summer life will still all questioning,
    The leaves will whisper peace, and calm will be
    The wild, vast, blue, illimitable sea.
And we shall hush our murmurings, and bring
    To Nature, green below and blue above,
    A whole life's worshipping, a whole life's love.

We will not speak of sometime fretting fears,
    We will not think of aught that may arise
    In future hours to cloud our golden skies.
Some souls there are who love their woes and tears,