The fields lie bare before me now,
The fruit is gathered in,
Not even seen a grazing cow,
Nor heard the blackbird's din.
The heath is brown, and ivy pale,
The woodbine berries red,
And withered leaves borne on the gale
Sink down on peaty bed.

At morn the fence was covered o'er
With a pale sheet of rime;
The earth was like a marble floor,
But now is turned to grime.
For Autumn rains are falling fast,
And swells the running brook;
The Indian Summer, too, is past;
For snowfall soon we look.

Take the cloak from his face, and at first
Let the corpse do its worst!
How he lies in his rights of a man!
Death has done all death can.
And, absorbed in the new life he leads,
He recks not, he heeds
Nor his wrong nor my vengeance, both strike
On his senses alike,
And are lost in the solemn and strange
Surprise of the change.
Ha, what avails death to erase
His offence, my disgrace?
I would we were boys as of old
In the field, by the fold
His outrage, God’s patience, man’s scorn
Were so easily borne!

I stand here now, he lies in his place:
Cover the face!

"Son of my buried Son, while thus thy hand"
"Is clasping mine, it saddens me to think"
"How Want may press thee down, and with thee sink"
"Thy children left unfit, through vain demand"
"Of culture, even to feel or understand"
"My simplest Lay that to their memory"
"May cling; hard fate! which haply need not be"
"Did Justice mould the statutes of the Land."
"A Book time-cherished and an honoured name"
"Are high rewards; but bound they Nature's claim"
"Or Reason's? No hopes spun in timid line"
"From out the bosom of a modest home"
"Extend through unambitious years to come,"
"My careless Little-one, for thee and thine!"

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A travelling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.

A narrow wind complains all day
How some one treated him;
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
Without her diadem.

The year stood at its equinox
    And bluff the North was blowing,
A bleat of lambs came from the flocks,
    Green hardy things were growing;
I met a maid with shining locks
    Where milky kine were lowing.

She wore a kerchief on her neck,
    Her bare arm showed its dimple,
Her apron spread without a speck,
    Her air was frank and simple.

She milked into a wooden pail
    And sang a country ditty,
An innocent fond lovers' tale,
    That was not wise nor witty,
Pathetically rustical,
    Too pointless for the city.

She kept in time without a beat
    As true as church-bell ringers,
Unless she tapped time with her feet,
    Or squeezed it with her fingers;
Her clear unstudied notes were sweet
    As many a practise...

One summer time, with love imbued,
To climb the mount, explore the wood,
    Or rove from pole to pole,
Upon Monadnock's brow I stood -
    A lone, adventurous soul.

Beyond the Bay State border-line
A sweeping vista, grand and fine,
    Embraced the Berkshire hills;
Embosomed hamlets, clumps of pine,
    And country domiciles.

Afar, Mount Tom, in verdantique,
And Holyoke, twin companion peak,
    Appeared gigantic cones;
The burning sunlight scorched my cheek,
    And seemed to melt the stones.

Beneath a gnarled and twisted root
I loosed a pebble with my foot
    That leaped the precipice,
And like an arrow seemed to shoot
    Adown the deep abyss.

Beside the base that solstice day
A city chap who chanced to str...

I.

    O Bonnie was yon rosy brier,
        That blooms sae far frae haunt o' man,
    And bonnie she, and ah, how dear!
        It shaded frae the e'enin sun.

II.

    Yon rosebuds in the morning dew
        How pure, amang the leaves sae green:
    But purer was the lover's vow
        They witness'd in their shade yestreen.

III.

    All in its rude and prickly bower,
        That crimson rose, how sweet and fair!
    But love is far a sweeter flower
        Amid life's thorny path o' care.

IV.

    The pathless wild, and wimpling burn,
        Wi' Chloris in my arms, be mine;
    And I the world, nor wish, nor scorn,
        Its joys and griefs alike resign.

("O Soleil!")

[Bk. II. iv., Anniversary of the Coup d'État, 1852.]


O Sun! thou countenance divine!
Wild flowers of the glen,
Caves swoll'n with shadow, where sunshine
Has pierced not, far from men;
Ye sacred hills and antique rocks,
Ye oaks that worsted time,
Ye limpid lakes which snow-slide shocks
Hurl up in storms sublime;
And sky above, unruflfed blue,
Chaste rills that alway ran
From stainless source a course still true,
What think ye of this man?

Where the violet shadows brood
Under cottonwoods and beeches,
Through whose leaves the restless reaches
Of the river glance, I've stood,
While the red-bird and the thrush
Set to song the morning hush.

There, when woodland hills encroach
On the shadowy winding waters,
And the bluets, April's daughters,
At the darling Spring's approach,
Star their myriads through the trees,
All the land is one with peace.

Under some imposing cliff,
That, with bush and tree and boulder,
Thrusts a gray, gigantic shoulder
O'er the stream, I've oared a skiff,
While great clouds of berg-white hue
Lounged along the noonday blue.

There, when harvest heights impend
Over shores of rippling summer,
And to greet the fair new-comer,
June, the wildr...

The mountain sat upon the plain
In his eternal chair,
His observation omnifold,
His inquest everywhere.

The seasons prayed around his knees,
Like children round a sire:
Grandfather of the days is he,
Of dawn the ancestor.

Montparnasse,

April 1914.

All day the sun has shone into my little attic, a bitter sunshine that brightened yet did not warm. And so as I toiled and toiled doggedly enough, many were the looks I cast at the three faggots I had saved to cook my evening meal. Now, however, my supper is over, my pipe alight, and as I stretch my legs before the embers I have at last a glow of comfort, a glimpse of peace.




My Garret



Here is my Garret up five flights of stairs;
Here's where I deal in dreams and ply in fancies,
Here is the wonder-shop of all my wares,
My sounding sonnets and my red romances.
Here's where I challenge Fate and ring my rhymes,
And grope at glory - aye, and starve at times.

Here is my Stronghold: stout of heart am I,
Gre...

    In rich Virginian woods,
The scarlet creeper reddens over graves,
Among the solemn trees enlooped with vines;
Heroic spirits haunt the solitudes, -
The noble souls of half a million braves,
    Amid the murmurous pines.


    Ah! who is left behind,
Earnest and eloquent, sincere and strong,
To consecrate their memories with words
Not all unmeet? with fitting dirge and song
To chant a requiem purer than the wind,
    And sweeter than the birds?


    Here, though all seems at peace,
The placid, measureless sky serenely fair,
The laughter of the breeze among the leaves,
The bars of sunlight slanting through the trees,
The reckless wild-flowers blooming everywhere,
    The grasses' delicate sheaves, -


    Nathless eac...

Mrs. Earth makes silver black,
    Mrs. Earth makes iron red
But Mrs. Earth can not stain gold,
    Nor ruby red.
Mrs. earth the slenderest bone
    Whitens in her bosom cold,
But Mrs. Earth can change my dreams
    No more than ruby or gold.
Mrs. Earth and Mr. Sun
    Can tan my skin, and tire my toes,
But all that I'm thinking of, ever shall think,
    Why, either knows.

"Great nature spoke, observant man obey'd."
Pope.


    Let other heroes boast their scars,
        The marks of sturt and strife;
    And other poets sing of wars,
        The plagues of human life;
    Shame fa' the fun; wi' sword and gun
        To slap mankind like lumber!
    I sing his name, and nobler fame,
        Wha multiplies our number.

    Great Nature spoke with air benign,
        "Go on, ye human race!
    This lower world I you resign;
        Be fruitful and increase.
    The liquid fire of strong desire
        I've pour'd it in each bosom;
    Here, in this hand, does mankind stand,
        And there, is beauty's blossom."

    The hero of these artless strains,
        A lowly bard was he,
    Who s...

Now stands Soracte white with snow, now bend the laboring trees,
And with the sharpness of the frost the stagnant rivers freeze.
Pile up the billets on the hearth, to warmer cheer incline,
And draw, my Thaliarchus, from the Sabine jar the wine.

The rest leave to the gods, who still the fiercely warring wind,
And to the morrow's store of good or evil give no mind.
Whatever day your fortune grants, that day mark up for gain;
And in your youthful bloom do not the sweet amours disdain.

Now on the Campus and the squares, when evening shades descend,
Soft whisperings again are heard, and loving voices blend;
And now the low delightful laugh betrays the lurking maid,
While from her slowly yielding arms the forfeiture is paid.

The sun set late; and left along the west
A belt of furious ruby, o'er which snows
Of clouds unrolled; each cloud a mighty breast
Blooming with almond-rose.

The sun set late; and wafts of wind beat down,
And cuffed the blossoms from the blossoming quince;
Scattered the pollen from the lily's crown,
And made the clover wince.

By dusky forests, through whose fretful boughs
In flying fragments shot the evening's flame,
Adown the tangled lane the quiet cows
With dreamy tinklings came.

The sun set late; but hardly had he gone
When o'er the moon's gold-litten crescent there,
Clean Phosphor, polished as a precious stone,
Burned in fair deeps of air.

As from faint stars the glory waned and waned,
The crickets made the oldtime garden shrill...

Sente l' aura mia antica, e i dolci colli.

HE REVISITS VAUCLUSE.


    I feel the well-known gale; the hills I spy
So pleasant, whence my fair her being drew,
Which made these eyes, while Heaven was willing, shew
Wishful, and gay; now sad, and never dry.
O feeble hopes! O thoughts of vanity!
Wither'd the grass, the rills of turbid hue;
And void and cheerless is that dwelling too,
In which I live, in which I wish'd to die;
Hoping its mistress might at length afford
Some respite to my woes by plaintive sighs,
And sorrows pour'd from her once-burning eyes.
I've served a cruel and ungrateful lord:
While lived my beauteous flame, my heart be fired;
And o'er its ashes now I weep expired.

NOTT.


    Once more, ye balmy gal...

Tune - "The King of France, he rade a race."



I.

    Amang the trees, where humming bees
        At buds and flowers were hinging, O,
    Auld Caledon drew out her drone,
        And to her pipe was singing, O;
    'Twas pibroch, sang, strathspey, or reels,
        She dirl'd them aff fu' clearly, O,
    When there cam a yell o' foreign squeels,
        That dang her tapsalteerie, O.

II.

    Their capon craws and queer ha ha's,
        They made our lugs grow eerie, O;
    The hungry bike did scrape and pike,
        'Till we were wae and weary, O;
    But a royal ghaist wha ance was cas'd
        A prisoner aughteen year awa,
    He fir'd a fiddler in the north
        That dang them tapsalteerie, O.