The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
England’s cliffs are
white like milk,
But England’s
fields are green;
The grey fogs creep across
the moors,
But warm suns
stand between.
And not so far from London town, beyond
the brimming street,
A thousand little summer winds are singing
in the wheat.
Red-lipped poppies stand and
burn,
The hedges are
aglow;
The daisies climb the windy
hills
Till all grow
white like snow.
And when the slim, pale moon slides up,
and dreamy night is near,
There’s a whisper in the beeches
for lonely hearts to hear.
Poppies burn in Italy,
And suns grow
round and high;
The black pines of Posilipo
Are gaunt upon
the sky—
And yet I know an English elm beside an
English lane
That calls me through the twilight and
the miles of misty rain.
Tell me why the meadow-lands
Become so warm
in June;
Why the tangled roses breathe
So softly to the
moon;
And when the sunset bars come down to
pass the feet of day,
Why the singing thrushes slide between
the sprigs of May?
Weary, we have wandered back—
And we have travelled far—
Above the storms and over seas
Gleamed ever one bright star—
O England! when our feet grow cold and will no longer
roam,
We see beyond your milk-white cliffs the round,
green fields of home.
The Madness of Winds
On all the upland pastures the strong
winds gallop free,
Trampling down the flowered stalks sleepy in the
sun,
Whirl away in blue and gold all their finery,
Till naked crouch the gentle hosts where the winds
have run.
Along the rocking hillsides shaggy heads
are bent;
Out upon the tawny plains
tortured dust leaps high;
The red roof of the sunset is torn away
and rent,
And chaos lifts the heavy
sea and bends the hollow sky.
The winds are drunk with freedom—the
crowded valleys roar;
The madness surges through
their veins, and when they gallop out
The black rain follows close behind, the
pale sun flees before,
And recklessly across the
world goes all the broken rout.
I was striding on the uplands when the
host was running mad,
I saw them threshing through
the leaves and daisy tops below,
And as their feet came up the hill, my
tired heart grew glad—
Till at the music of their
throats I knew that I must go.
So the winds are now my brothers, they
have joined me to their ranks,
And when their rampant strength
wells up and drives them singing forth,
I am with them when they roll the fog
across the oily banks,
And tumble out the sleeping
bergs that crowd beyond the north.
The woods are drenched with moonlight
and every leafs awake;
The little beads of dew sit
white on every twig and blade;
A thousand stars are scattered thick beneath
the forest lake;
We pass—with only
laughter for the havoc we have made.
There’s not a wind that brushes
the long bright fields of corn,
Or, shrieking, drives the
broken wreck beneath a blackened sea,
There’s not a wind that draws the
rain across the face of morn
That does not rise when I
arise and sink again with me.
They took me from the forests and they
put me in the town;
They bid me learn the wisdom the wise
men have laid down,
To put by my childish ways
And forget my Golden Days,
With my feet upon the ladder that runs
up to high renown.
So I would not hear the voices that were
calling day and night,
And I would not see the visions that were
ever in my sight;
But I mingled with the throngs,
Heard their curses and their
songs,
And raised the brimming glass on high
to catch the yellow light.
But I was not meant to wander where the
wild things never came,
Where the night-time was like day-time
and the seasons were the same;
Where the city’s sullen
roar
Ever surged against my door,
And the only peace was battle and the
only goal was fame.
For my blood pulsed hot within me and
the prize seemed wondrous small;
And my soul cried out for freedom in a
world beyond a wall.
Oh, fame can well be sung
By those no longer young,
By wisdom, age and learning; but youth
transcends them all!
So I’ll let the spring of life well
up and drown the empty quest;
And I’ll watch the stars more bright
than fame gleam red along the crest;
And taste the driving rain
Between my lips again,
And know that to the blood of youth the
open road is best.
With Spring-time in the woodlands will
my pulses stir and thrill;
I’ll run below the wet young moon
where myriad frogs pipe shrill;
I’ll forget the world
of strife,
Where fame is more than life;
And I’ll mate with youth and beauty
when the sun is on the hill.
The Homesteader
Mother England, I am coming, cease your
calling for a season,
For the plains of wheat need
reaping, and the thrasher’s at the door.
All these long years I have loved you,
but you cannot call it treason
If I loved my shack of shingles
and my little baby more.
Now my family have departed—for
the good Lord took them early—
And I turn to thee, O England,
as a son that seeks his home.
Now younger folk may plough and plant
the plains I love so dearly,
Whose acres stretch too wide
for feet that can no longer roam.
If the western skies are bluer and the
western snows are whiter,
And the flowers of the prairie-lands
are bright and honey-sweet,
’Tis the scent of English primrose
makes my weary heart beat lighter
As I count the days that part
me from your little cobble street.
For the last time come the reapers (you
can hear the knives ring cheery
As they pitch the bearded
barley in a thousand tents of gold);
For I see the cliffs of Devon bulking
dark beyond the prairie,
And hear the skylarks calling
to a heart that’s growing old.
When the chaff-piles cease their burning
and the frost is closing over
All the barren leagues of
stubble that my lonely feet have passed,
I shall spike the door and journey towards
the Channel lights of Dover—
That England may receive my
dreams and bury them at last!
Each morning they sit down to their little
bites of bread,
To six warm bowls of porridge
and a broken mug or two.
And each simple soul is happy and each
hungry mouth is fed—
Then why should she be smiling
as the weary-hearted do?
All day the house has echoed to their
tiny, treble laughter
(Six little rose-faced cherubs
who trip shouting through the day),
Till the candle lights the cradle and
runs dark along the rafter—
Then why should she be watching
while the long night wastes away?
She tells them how their daddy has sailed
out across the seas,
And they’ll be going
after when the May begins to bloom.
Oh, they clap their hands together as
they cluster round her knees—
Then why should she be weeping
as they tumble from the room?
The May has bloomed and withered and the
haws are clinging red,
The winter winds are talking
in the dead ranks of the trees;
And still she tells of daddy as she tucks
each tot in bed—
God pity all dear women who
have husbands over seas!
The Country Goes to Town
The Country walked to Town, and what did
she find there?
Not a bird nor flower, the trees forsaken
were;
The folk were walking two-and-two in every
lane and street—
You scarce could hear your neighbour for
the racket of their feet.
She could not see the sun shine for dust
about the sky;
She could not hear the winds call, the
walls went up so high;
And even when the night came to brush
aside the day,
She found about the city they were driving
it away.
“Then what have you got here?”
the Country asked the Town.
“There’s not a green leaf
anywhere, the world is bleak and brown,
I haven’t seen a red cheek nor heard
a woman’s laughter;
I’m going back to Bird Land, but
won’t you follow after?”
The Town rode to the Country, and what
did she find there?
Just a lot of emptiness, with flowers
everywhere.
The birds were screaming overhead, the
sun was on her face,
The fences were untidy, and the brambles
a disgrace.
“Then what have you got here?”
the Town cried in her scorn.
“I haven’t met a four-in-hand
nor heard a motor horn.
It’ll cost a pretty penny to restore
my riding clothes,
While my beauty is nigh ruined for the
freckles on my nose.”
“What have I got here? Just
azure hills and peace,
Green moss and green fern on roads that
never cease.
And if my heart grows weary of such pleasurings
as these,
There’s a baby who comes romping
through the nursery of the trees!”
From Capo di Sorrento, its poppies and
its clover,
The headlands of Fosilipo,
the wharves of Napoli,
A wide blue trail runs westward to the
ocean rim and over
To where there lies a little
town with lights along the sea.
Here pink and blue the villas crowd beside
the yellow sand,
And sweet and hot, the scented
winds puff sultry to the bay,
The shadow of Vesuvius lies gray across
the land—
And on my heart a loneliness
that calls me far away.
My restless feet are weary of these hills
of purple vines,
These crooked groves of olive
trees that scrawl the crooked lanes
The walnuts shoulder weakly round the
tall Italian pines,
That whisper like the waves
of wheat across the yellow plains.
All day beneath the ruins of Donn’
Anna gaunt and black,
The boats of fisher-folk go
by with song and trailing net;
And dim the cloud of Capri where the red
feluccas tack—
But still the belching funnels
smirch the trail I can’t forget.
Virgil’s tomb gapes empty where
the oranges are bright,
Above the Roman corridors
that goats and beggars tread;
Soft voices and thin music and laughter
all the night—
I only see a thousand leagues
the Channel lights burn red;
I only hear dear English tongues forever
calling me,
Across the high white English
cliffs and flowers of the foam;
I only breathe sweet lilac bloom a-blowing
out to sea—
A-blowing down the long sea-lanes
to lead a lover home!
The Changing Year
Summer, autumn, winter, spring—
Back and forth the seasons swing;
Sun and snows returning ever,
Like the wild geese on the wing.
When the clean sap climbs the tree,
When the strong winds groan and flee—
Dance the daisies on the hill-tops
To the thin tune of the bee.
When the golden noons hang still,
Crimson flames run down the hill,
And the musk-rats in the bayou
Feel the waters growing chill.
Wood-smoke mists the naked moor;
Dead leaves shroud the forest floor;
When the white frosts cross
the threshold,
Summer softly shuts the door.
Like cold love and empty pain,
Fades the sun and drifts the rain.
Tips the world and slips the
season,
Swinging wide the doors again.
Gaunt and black the naked pines are
scrawled across the sky;
The wild wet winds are clinging where the hard
peaks lift and soar;
They watch our long gray hosts of rain forever marching
by,
While up through all the canyons we send our sullen
roar.
From every sodden meadow we’ve
trodden out the sun;
We’ve ground the pale green stalks of grass
that lifted through the hills;
Across the yelping torrents a thousand feet have
run,
Till waters scream in anger and the wide-mouthed
valley fills.
Among the moaning spruces we threshed
our heedless way;
And out upon the barrens where the lonely spaces
hide,
We stamped the miles of mosses and blackened out
the day,
And waked the awful silence where all the winds
have died.
The stars flamed brave before us
and the greater light hung still
When the white smoke of our breath blew up
and drowned the hollow night.
We crushed them out beneath our feet and leapt from
hill to hill,
Till east to east the sweep of space was rocking
with our flight.
The little walls of man uprose like shields
beneath our feet;
We beat upon their hollow
cells a million shafts of rain;
Our wild song of freedom was loud in every
street,
While down along the slimy
wharves the great ships lift and strain.
The dawn pushed pale thin fingers above
the flattened sea,
Groping blind white fingers
that clawed the shroud of night;
’Till from the straining eddies
the pale forms turned to flee,
And a million tongues of madness
rose singing through the fight.
Across the quaking marshes we turned and
wandered back;
The trapper in the clearing
heard the wan thin hosts of rain.
We moved between the steaming trails where
all the woods dripped black,
And high among the empty hills
we pitched our tents again.
Spring Madness
I stoop and tear the sandals from my feet
While the green fires glimmer in the gloom;
The hot roar of madness
Swells my veins with gladness;
I smell the rotting wood-stuff
And the drift of willow-bloom,
And the moon’s wet face
Lifts above the place
Till gaunt and black the shadows are crowding
close for room.
The alder thickets brush against my limbs;
The heavy tramp of water shakes the night;
I cross the naked hills,
Where the thin dawn lifts and fills;
All the black woods wail behind me—
They cannot stay my flight
Till the sun’s red stain
Dyes the world again
And winds beyond the heavens are dancing
in the light.
The snows have joined the little streams
and slid into the sea;
The mountain sides are damp
and black and steaming in the sun;
But Spring, who should be with us now,
is waiting timidly
For Winter to unbar the gates
and let the rivers run.
It matters not how green the grass is
lifting through the mold,
How strong the sap is climbing
out to every naked bough,
That in the towns the market-stalls are
bright with jonquil gold,
And over marsh and meadowland
the frogs are fluting now.
For still the waters groan and grind beneath
the icy floor,
And still the winds are hungry-cold
that leave the valley’s mouth.
Expectantly each day we wait to hear the
sullen roar.
And see the blind and broken
herd retreating to the south.
One morning when the rain-birds call across the singing rills, And the maple buds like tiny flames shine red among the green, The ice will burst asunder and go pounding through the hills— An endless gray procession with the yellow flood between,
Then the Spring will no more linger, but
come with joyous shout,
With music in the city squares
and laughter down the lane;
The thrush will pipe at twilight to draw
the blossoms out,
And the vanguard of the summer
host will camp with us again.
Spring once more is here—
Joyous, sweet, and clear—
Singing down the leafless aisles
To the budding year.
Her chanting is the thrush
Through the twilight hush,
And the silver tongues of waters
Where the willows blush;
Stir of lifting heads
Over violet beds;
Piping of the first glad robin
Through the greens and reds;
Croak of sullen crows
When the south wind blows,
Sighing in the shaggy spruces
Wet with melted snows;
Whisper of the rain
Down the hills again,
And the heavy feet of waters
Tramping on the plain.
Now the Goddess Spring
Makes the woodlands ring,
Bringing with a hundred voices
Joy to everything.
The Flutes of the Frogs
’Tis not the notes of the homing
birds through the first warm April rain,
Or the scarlet buds and the rising green
come back to the land again,
That stirs my heart from its winter sleep
to pulse to the old refrain;
But when from the miles of bubbling marsh
and
the
valley’s steaming floor,
Shrilling keen with a million flutes the
ancient spring-time lore,
I hear the myriad emerald frogs awake
in the world once more.
All day when the clouds drive overhead
and the shadows run below,
Crossing the wind-swept pasture lots where
the thin, red willows glow,
There’s not a throat in the joyous
host that does not swell and blow.
And all night long to the march of stars
the wild mad music thrills,
Voicing the birth of the glad wet spring
in a thousand stops and trills,
Till the pale sun lifts through the rosy
mists
and
floats from the harbour hills.
Did you ever meet Miss Pixie of the
Spruces?
Did you ever glimpse her mocking
elfin face?
Did you ever hear her calling while the
whip-poor-wills were calling,
And slipped your pack and
taken up the chase?
Her feet are clad in moccasins and beads.
Her dress? Oh, next
to nothing. Though undressed,
Her slender arms are circled round with
vine
And dusky locks cling close
about her breast.
Red berries droop below each pointed ear;
Her nut-brown legs are criss-crossed
white with scratches;
Her merry laughter sifts among the pines;
Her eager face gleams pale
from milk-weed patches.
And though I never yet have reached her
hand—
God knows I’ve tried
with all my heart’s desire;—
One morning just at dawn she caught me
sleeping
And with her soft lips touched
my soul with fire.
And once when camping near a foaming rip,
Lying wide-eyed beneath the
milky stars,
Sudden I heard her voice ring sweet and
clear,
Calling my soul beyond the
river bars.
Dear, dancing Pixie of the wind and weather,
Aglow with love and merriment
and sun,
I chase thee down my dreams, but catch
thee never—
God grant I catch thee ere
the trail is done!
Did you ever meet Miss Pixie of the
Thickets,
Where the scarlet leaves leap
tinkling from your feet?
Have you ever heard her calling while
a million feet were falling,
And a million lights were
crowding all the street?
A-Fishing
Now is the time for the luring fly
Spring is awake and the waters high,
Hackle and Doctor and Montreal,
Bend to your cast that a king may die.
Armed with a gaff and a clicking reel,
High jack-boots and an empty creel,
A yard of gut, a split bamboo,
Beginner’s luck and a fisherman’s
zeal.
Over the hills at the rise of day,
Through a sea of mist when the world is
grey
I hie me down to the river’s bend,
Where the shadows gloom and the ripples
play.
Then all the length of an afternoon,
The light reel sings to a thrilling tune,
Till the basket sags with the speckled
trout,
And I wander home by an April moon.
When summer winds like scented waves bear
fluffy flakes
of
cruising seeds,
Above the stems of tawny grass and pale
white wreaths of flowered weeds,
And berries splash their scarlet stains
across the dipping hills of sun,
Their laughter lifts like silver bells
and tinkling echoes sweetly run.
Their faces far below the crests of rippling
gold and shadowed green,
They hear the dreams of drowsy bees and
watch those buccaneers unseen
Cling yellow to the clover masts and trailing
ropes of wild blue pea,
And breathe the brine of daisy froth that
drifts
between
the walls of sea.
Their fingers pluck the glowing fruit,
their lips and cheeks
are
smeared and dyed;
Their snowy bonnets brush the grass like
lifting top-sails on a tide;
And when their little pails brim red and
rosy hands will hold no more,
They steer long shadows down the waves
that float
their
tired feet to shore.
The Wood Trail
Down between the branches drops a low,
soft wind.
Where the narrow trail begins
there start I.
Yellow sun and shadow are spinning gold
behind,
Long brakes are clutching
as my knees brush by.
Hidden glades are pink with the twin linnaea,
Sweet with scented fronds
and the warm, wet fern;
Flute the far-off rain-birds sad and clear,
Flash the pigeon blossoms
at each sharp turn.
Pungent breathe the balsams by the stream’s
low banks;
Rotting wood and violets lie
side by side;
Glows the scarlet fungus through the alder
ranks,
Burning like a light on a
still, green tide.
Hilltops bid me linger where the winds
run cool;
Hollows hold my feet in the
deep, black loam,
But marking purple shadows in the purring
pool,
I lift my silent feet on the
long trail home.
He sees the rosy apples cling like flowers
to the bough;
He plucks the purple plums
and spills the cherries on the grass;
He wanted peace and silence,—God
gives him plenty now,—
His feet upon the mountain
and his shadow on the pass.
He built himself a cabin from red cedars
of his own;
He blasted out the stumps
and twitched the boulders from the soil;
And with an axe and chisel he fashioned
out a throne
Where he might dine in grandeur
off the first-fruits of his toil.
His orchard is a treasure-house alive
with song and sun,
Where currants ripe as rubies
gleam and golden pippins glow;
His servants are the wind and rain whose
work is never done,
Till winter rends the scarlet
roof and banks the halls with snow.
He shouts across the valley, and the ranges
answer back;
His brushwood smoke at evening
lifts a column to the moon;
And dim beyond the distance, where the
Kootenai winds black,
He hears the silence shattered
by the laughter of the loon.
From Exile
Call to me, call to me, fields of poppied
wheat!
Purple thistles by the road
call me to return!
Now a thousand shriller throats echo down
the street,
And I cannot hear the wind
camping in the fern.
Little leaves beside the trail dance your
way to town,
Till you find your brother
here who remembers yet;
For though a river runs between and the
bridge is down,
I’ve a heart that’s
roaming and a soul that won’t forget.
A sun squats on the house-tops, but his
face is hard and dry;
A rain walks up and down the
streets, but her voice is harsh—
Sunlight is a different thing where the
swallows fly,
And rain-tongues sing with
sweeter voice when they’re on the marsh.
Once a thousand bending blades stoop to
let me pass,
When I sped barefooted through
your crowding lines—
Whisper to me gently in the language of
the grass,
How I watched the crows of
night nest among the pines.
Still the golden pollen smokes, silver
runs the rain,
Still the timid mists creep
out when the sun lies down—
Oh, I am weary waiting to return to you
again,
So take a pale, familiar face
out beyond the town.
The winds run warm on the waves of the
grass
that
lifts like a scented sea.
No sound of the surf, no sob of the tides;
but
the drone of the drowsy bee
Is drawing me out from the purple shades
to
wade in the daffodils,
Where the long green billows go drifting
by
to
lap the feet of the hills.
Like the snow-white spume on the shattered
waves
the
daisies twist and cream,
Over their heads in a painted mist the
myriad
insects
gleam.
And the still sea sways in the sun’s
soft breath
and
breaks on the green, green sand,
Till I bare my limbs to the noiseless
surf
and
wade from the silent land.
The pale stalks eddy from knee to waist
and rise
to
my sun-flecked face;
Cool on my lips is the daisy foam and
the spray
of
the Queen Anne’s lace.
With half-shut eyes and outstretched arms
I swim
through
the scented heat.
Oh, never were broad sea winds so warm,
nor
Southern seas so sweet?
There’s Music in My Heart To-day
There’s music in my heart to-day;
The Master-hand is on the
keys,
Calling me up to the windy hills
And down to the purple seas.
Let Time draw back when I hear that tune—
Old to the soul when the stars
were new—
And swing the doors to the four great
winds,
That my feet may wander through.
North or South, and East or West;
Over the rim with the bellied
sails,
From the mountain’s feet to the
empty plains,
Or down the silent trails—
It matters not which door you choose;
The same clear tune blows
through them all,
Though one harp leaps to the grind of
seas
And one to the rain-bird’s
call.
However you hide in the city’s din
And drown your ears with its
siren songs,
Some day steal in those thin, wild notes,
And you leave the foolish
throngs.
God grant that the day will find me not
When the tune shall mellow
and thrill in vain—
So long as the plains are red with sun,
And the woods are black with
rain.
The swooning heat of August
Swims along the valley’s bed.
The tall reeds burn and blacken,
While the gray elm droops its head,
And the smoky sun above the hills is glaring
hot and red.
Along the shrinking river,
Where the salmon-nets hang brown,
Piles the driftwood of the freshets,
And the naked logs move down
To the clanking chains and shrieking saws
of the mills above the town.
Outside the booms of cedar,
The fish-hawks drop at noon;
When night comes trailing up the stars,
We hear the ghostly loon;
And watch the herons swing their flight
against the crimson moon.
The Wind Tongues
I wandered in the woodlands where the red glades begin,
And a wind in every tree-top was talking small and thin:
“The dead hand of Winter is knocking at the door,
And the white froth of flowers will float no more.
“The gray ranks of grasses are bared
of their bees,
Their voices sound like falling spume
between the leaden seas;
We hear beyond the alders where the long
swamps lie
The creak of broken rushes and the last
snipe’s cry.”
And I marked the poignant sorrow in each
high tree tongue,
Conferring there above me where the blue
moss hung;
Till anguish grew from far away and broke
in sullen roar,
As when a smoking surf meets a rock-ribbed
shore.
When the mists move down from the barren
hill,
To roll where the waters are black and
chill,
When the moonlight gleams on the lily-pads
And even the winds are still.
The musk-rats slip from the clammy bank,
Where the tangled reeds are long and dank,
Where the dew lies white on the iris bed,
And the rushes stand in rank.
Their black heads furrow the stagnant
stream,
While the water breaks in a silver gleam,
Till it joins the reeds where the night
lies hid
And the purple herons dream.
Through the mist and the moon’s
mysterious light
They hear the honking geese take flight,
Threshing up from the arrow-heads
As the lonely East grows white.
The Kill
Black and white the face of night,
And roar the rapids to the
moon;
Dust of stars beyond the bars,
And mirthless laughter of
the loon.
Swirling blades through inky shades,
And ghostly shadows slipping
by;
Clogging beds of arrowheads,
And jagging spruce tops in
the sky,
Rasping groans of birchen cones
Re-answering from shore to
shore;
Through the hush the snapping brush—
Then silence, and the stars
once more.
Mutters slow, appealing, low,
The throaty pleading of the
bark;
Roar of might that rends the night—
His body bulking through the
dark.
Then the white, cruel tongue of light
Leaps stinging in his startled
eyes;
Red and black the night falls back,
The rocking echo drifts and
dies.
Out on the marsh in the misty rain,
The air is full of the harsh refrain;
The long swamps echo the beat of wings;
The birds are back in the reeds again.
Down from the north they wing their way.
Out of the east they cross the bay.
From north and east they’re steering
home
To the inland ponds at the close of day.
Hid in the sea of reeds we lie,
And watch the wild geese driving by;
And listen to the plover’s piping,—
The gray snipe’s thin and lonely
cry.
All day over the tangled mass,
The marsh-birds wheel and scream and pass.
The smoke hangs white in the broken rice.
The feathers drift in the water-grass.
The Scarlet Trails
Crimson and gold in the paling sky;
The rampikes black where they tower on
high,—
And we follow the trails in the early
dawn
Through the glades where the white frosts
lie.
Down where the flaming maples meet;
Where the leaves are blood before our
feet
We follow the lure of the twisting paths
While the air tastes thin and sweet
Leggings and jackets are drenched with
dew
The long twin barrels are cold and blue;
But the glow of the Autumn burns in our
veins,
And our eyes and hands are true.
Where the sun drifts down from overhead
(Tangled gleams in the scarlet bed),
Rush of wings through the forest aisle—
And the leaves are a brighter red.
Loud drum the cocks in the thickets nigh;
Gray is the smoke where the ruffed grouse
die.
There’s blackened shell in the trampled
fern
When the white moon swims the sky.
The plowed field sinks in the drifting
snows.
The last gray feather to southward goes.
Rattle the reeds in the frozen swamp,
When the lonely north-wind blows.
The harrow and sickle are laid away.
The barns are warm with the scent of hay;
While Death stalks free in the silent
world,
Through the gloom of a winter’s
day.
In the creeping night the black winds
cry.
The daylight comes like a stifled sigh.
The hearths gleam red, while the long
smoke
Crawls up to a grayer sky.
Winter Winds
Like a hard cruel lash the long lean
winds
are laid on the back of the land,
Curling over the breast of the hills and cutting
the feet of the plain,
Till the naked limbs of the forest host cringe
at the lift of the hand,
And the white-ribbed waves on the granite shore
moan and sob in their pain.
Never a sail on that sharp straight
line
that marks the steel of the sky;
Never a wing flees in from death to crouch
in the rattling reeds;
In the shaggy heads of the black coast pines
the frozen spume drives high;
And even the hand of the leering sun lies cold
on the tattered weeds.
A month ago and the warm winds ran
over the stalks
of gold,
With the grass-heads wet in the morning mists
and the daisies topped with bees;
And now the last of the year lies dead,
the world walks bent, and old,
And only the bitter lash of the wind sweeps
in from the iron seas.
The haws cling to the thorn,
Shrivelled and red;
The limbs long dead
Clutch at a leaf long torn—
It taps all day on the spikes
As the spume licks over the dikes.
The reeds creak in the dawn
By the dead pond;
Dry tongues respond
From grasses yellow and drawn;
And ever scourged by the wind,
The alders clatter and grind.
Vines furred with the frost
String from the wall:
Their bones recall
Summer leaves long lost,
Cricket and fly and bee
And their low melody.
No bird wails to the waste
Of scentless snow,
Where streaming low
The steel-blue shadows haste;
But through the hard night
The dead moon takes flight
The Winter Harvest
Between the blackened curbs lie stacked
the
harvest of the skies,
Long lines of frozen, grimy cocks befouled
by city feet;
On either side the racing throngs, the crowding
cliffs, the cries,
And ceaseless winds that eddy down to whip
the iron street.
The wagons whine beneath their loads,
the
raw-boned horses strain;
A hundred sullen shovels claw and heave the
sodden mass—
There lifts no dust of scented moats, no cheery
call of swain,
Nor birds that pipe from border brush across
the yellow grass.
No cow-bells honk from upland fields,
no sunset
thrushes call
To swarthy, bare-limbed harvesters beyond
the stubble roads;
But flanges grind on frosted steel, the weary
snow-picks fall,
And twisted, toiling backs are bent to pile the
bitter loads.
No shouting from the intervales,
no singing from
the hill,
No scent of trodden tansy weeds among the
golden grain——,
Only the silent, cringing forms beneath the
aching chill.
Only the hungry eyes of want in haggard
cheeks of pain.
The snow was four feet deep beyond my door.
(I never knew the cold so cruel before.)
The frost was white as death, and in the wood
Shattered the aching aisles of solitude.
Here lay the winter wrapped about with gloom;
But overhead God’s flowers were in bloom!
At dawn, above the ink-black trunks and
night,
A pale pink petal drifted with the light;
And presently the gates of sun swung wide,
And through them flowed a crimson, scented
tide:
Roses that bloomed and bloomed again and
died,
Staining the lonely hills on either side.
And scarce were God’s fields swept
of this warm glow,
When purest gold fell softly to the snow—
Petals of gold from where there rolled
on high
A sea of tulips lapping all the sky.
The blossoms clung so close I could not
see
One nook of empty blue where more could
be.
Snow and the winds that eat into the bone,
Here where the sun lies cold and waters
moan.
God’s pastures still are bearing
for His feet
A million purple blooms all dewy sweet:
Violets and asters, hyacinths and phlox,
And streaming shafts of starry hollyhocks.
Late in the day when I crawled up the
hills,
Dogged by the cold that tortures ere it
kills;
I needs must stand and stare beyond the
rim,
And watch the garden once more laid for
Him;
Until the moon’s great dripping
calyx came,
And all the myriad star-buds burst in
flame.
Then bitter envy gnawed upon my heart.
Flowers in Heaven, and I stand here apart!
“O God,” I cried, “take
me from this place,
Where I may feel the warm grass brush
my face!”
Then ’cross the snow a whisper caught
my ear:
“Peace, for the Spring—the
Spring once more is here.”