xt7c599z0p38 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7c599z0p38/data/mets.xml Cawein, Madison Julius, 1865-1914. 1902  books b92-198-30751432 English J.P. Morton & Co., : Louisville : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Voice on the wind  : and other poems / by Madison Cawein. text Voice on the wind  : and other poems / by Madison Cawein. 1902 2002 true xt7c599z0p38 section xt7c599z0p38 









A Voice Oil the \Vind

       AND OTHER POEMS
             by
     Madison Cawein



          Louisville
John P. Morton  Company, Publishers
           I 902

 























COPYRIGHTED 1902, BY MADISON CAWEIN

 






















   For permission to reprint several of the poems included in this
volume thanks are due to the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Magazine,
The Century Magazine, Smart Set, Saturday Evening Post, and
Lippincott's Magazine.

 This page in the original text is blank.

 





















            INSCRIBED
                TO
        EDMUND GOSSE

AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF APPRECIATION AND ESTEEM

 This page in the original text is blank.

 










PROEM.



OH, FOR A SOUL THAT FULFILLS
  MUSIC LIKE THAT OF A BIRD!
THRILLING WITH RAPTURE THE HILLS,
  HEEDLESS IF ANY ONE HEARD.


OR, LIKE THE FLOWER THAT BLOOMS
LONE IN THE MIDST OF THE TREES,
FILLING THE WOODS WITH PERFUMES,
CARELESS IF ANY ONE SEES.


OR, LIKE THE WANDERING WIND,
OVER THE MEADOWS THAT SWINGS,
BRINGING WILD SWEETS TO MANKIND,
KNOWING NOT THAT WHICH IT BRINGS.


OH, FOR A WAY TO IMPART
BEAUTY, NO MATTER HOW HARD!
LIKE UNTO NATURE, WHOSE ART
NEVER ONCE DREAMS OF REWARD.

 This page in the original text is blank.


 

  A Voice on the Uwind

                     5'7'

          A VOICE ON THE WIND

S HE walks with the wind on the windy height
S When the rocks are loud and the waves are white,
And all night long she calls through the night,
     ' 0, my children, come home! "
Her bleak gown, torn as a tattered cloud,
Tosses around her like a shroud,
While over the deep her voice rings loud.-
     "0, my children, come home, come home!
       0, my children, come home!"

Who is she who wanders alone,
When the wind drives sheer and the rain is blown
Who walks all night and makes her moan,
     "0, my children, come home!"
Whose face is raised to the blinding gale;
Whose hair blows black and whose eyes are pale,
While over the world is heard her wail,-
     "0, my children, come home, come home!
       0, my children, come home! "

She walks with the wind in the windy wood;
The sad rain drips from her hair and hood,
And her cry sobs by, like a ghost pursued,
     " 0, my children, come home! "

 
A Voice on the Wind



Where the trees are gaunt and the rocks are drear,
The owl and the fox crouch down in fear,
While wild through the wood her voice they hear,-
      "0, my children, come home, come home!
      0, my children, come home!"

Who is she who shudders by
When the boughs blow bare and the dead leaves fly
Who walks all night with her wailing cry,
     "0, my children, come home!"
Who, strange of look, and wild of tongue,
With pale feet wounded and hands wan-wrung,
Sweeps on and on with her cry, far-flung, -
     "0, my children, come home, come home!
       0, my children, come home! "

'Tis the Spirit of Autumn, no man sees,
The mother of Death and Mysteries,
Who cries on the wind all night to these,
     " 0, my children, come home! "
The Spirit of Autumn, pierced with pain,
Calling her children home again,
Death and Dreams, through ruin and rain,
     "0, my children, come home, come home!
     0, my children, come home! "



2


 






THE LAND OF HEARTS MADE WHOLE



Do you know the way that goes
Over fields of rue and rose,-
   Warm of scent and hot of hue,
   Roofed with heaven's bluest blue,-
   To the Vale of Dreams Come True

Do you know the path that twines,
Banked with elder-bosks and vines,
   Under boughs that shade a stream,
   Hurrying, crystal as a gleam,
   To the Hills of Love a-Dream

Tell me, tell me, have you gone
Through the fields and woods of dawn,
   Meadowlands and trees that roll,
   Great of grass and huge of bole,
   To the Land of Hearts Made Whole

On the way, among the fields,
Poppies lift vermilion shields,
   In whose hearts the golden Noon,
   Murmuring her drowsy tune,
   Rocks the sleepy bees that croon.
                 3

 
The Landl. of Hearts Ma(le Whole



On the way, amid the woods,
Mandrakes muster multitudes,
    'Mid whose blossoms, white as tusk,
    Glides the glimmering Forest-Dusk,
    With her fluttering moths of musk.

Here you hear the stealthy stir
Of shy lives of hoof and fur;
   Harmless things that hide and peer,
   Hearts that sucked the milk of fear-
   Fox and rabbit, squirrel and deer.

Here you see the mossy flight
Of faint forms that love the night-
   Whippoorwill- and owlet-things,
   Whose far call before you brings
   Wonder-worlds of happenings.

Now in sunlight, now in shade,
Water, like a brandished blade,
   Foaming forward, wild of flight,
   Startles then arrests the sight,
   Whirling steely loops of light.

Thro' the tree-tops, down the vale,
Breezes pass and leave a trail
   Of cool music that the birds,
   Following in happy herds.
   Gather up in twittering words.

 The Lanid of Hearts Made Whole



Blossoms, frail and manifold,
Strew the way with pearl and gold;
    Blurs, that seem the darling print
    Of the Springtime's feet, or glint
    Of her twinkling gown's torn tint.

There the myths of old endure:
Dreams that are the world-soul's cure;
    Things that have no place or play
    In the facts of Everyday
    'Round your presence smile and sway.

Suddenly your eyes may see,
Stepping softly from her tree,
    Slim of form and wet with dew,
    The brown dryad; lips the hue
    Of a berry bit into.

You may mark the naiad rise
From her pool's reflected skies;
   In her gaze the heaven that dreams,
   Starred, in twilight-haunted streams,
   Mixed with water's grayer gleams.

You may see the laurel's girth,
Big of bloom, give fragrant birth
   To the oread whose hair,
   Musk and darkness, light and air,
   Fills the hush with wonder there.
                  5

 
The Lan(d of Hearts Ma(de NN'hole



You may mark the rocks divide,
And the faun before you glide,
    Piping on a magic reed,
    Sowing many a music seed,
    From which bloom and mushroom bead.

Of the rain and sunlight born,
Young of beard and young of horn,
   You may see the satyr lie,
   With a very knowing eye,
   Teaching youngling birds to fly.

These shall cheer and follow you
Through the Vale of Dreams Come True;
   Wind-like voices, leaf-like feet;
   Forms of mist and hazy heat,
   In whose pulses sunbeams beat.

Lo! you tread enchanted ground!
From the hollows all around
   Elf and spirit, gnome and fay,
   Guide your feet along the way
   Till the dewy close of day.

Then beside you, jet on jet,
Emerald-hued or violet,
   Flickering swings a firefly light,
   Aye to guide your steps a-right
   From the valley to the height.
                  6

 
T1'hie Iaii(1 o)f Healts Madte WV hole



Steep the way is; when at last
Vale and wood and stream are passed,
    From the heights you shall behold
    Panther heavens of spotted gold
    Tiger-tawny deeps unfold.

You shall see on stocks and stones
Sunset's bell-deep color tones
    Fallen; and the valleys filled
    With dusk's purple music, spilled
    On the silence rapture-thrilled.

Then, as answering bell greets bell,
Night ring in her miracle
   Of the domed dark, o'er-rolled,
   Note on note, with starlight cold,
   'Twixt the moon's broad peal of gold.

On the hill-top Love-a-Dream
Shows you then her window-gleam;
   Brings you home and folds your soul
   In the peace of vale and knoll,
   In the Land of Hearts Made Whole.


 



THE WIND OF WINTER



The Winter Wind, the wind of death,
  Who knocked upon my door,
Now through the key-hole entereth,
  Invisible and hoar;
He breathes around his icy breath
  And treads the flickering floor.

I heard him, wandering in the night,
  Tap at my window pane,
With ghostly fingers, snowy white,
  I heard him tug in vain,
Until the shuddering candle-light
  With fear did cringe and strain.

The fire, awakened by his voice,
  Leapt up with frantic arms,
Like some wild babe that greets with noise
  Its father home who storms,
With rosy gestures that rejoice
And crimson kiss that warms.

Now in the hearth he sits and, drowned
Among the ashes, blows;
Or through the room goes stealing 'round
On cautious-stepping toes,
Deep mantled in the drowsy sound
Of night that sleets and snows.
                8

 
T lie WNVin(I fit \\Viiiten



And oft, like some thin fairy-thing,
  The stormy hush amid,
I hear his captive trebles ring
  Beneath the kettle's lid;
Or now a harp of elfland string
  In some dark cranny hid.

Again I hear him, imp-like, whine
  Cramped in the gusty flue;
Or knotted in the resinous pine
  Raise goblin cry and hue,
While through the smoke his eyeballs shine,
A sooty red and blue.

At last I hear him, nearing dawn,
Take up his roaring broom,
And sweep wild leaves from wood and lawn,
And from the heavens the gloom,
To show the gaunt world lying wan,
And morn's cold rose a-bloom.



2


 




THE WIND OF SUMMER



From the hills and far away
All the long, warm summer day
Comes the wind and seems to say:

Come, oh, come! and let us go
Where the meadows bend and blow,
Waving with the white-tops' snow.

"'Neath the hyssop-colored sky
'Mid the meadows we will lie
Watching the white clouds roll by;

"While your hair my hands shall press
With a cooling tenderness
Till your grief grows less and less.

'Come, oh, come! and let us roam
Where the rock-cut waters comb
Flowing crystal into foam.

"Under trees whose trunks are brown,
On the banks that violets crown,
We will watch the fish flash down;

"While your ear my voice shall soothe
With a whisper soft and smooth
Till your care shall wax uncouth.
                   10

 
The Wind of Summer



"Come! where forests, line on line,
Armies of the oak and pine,
Scale the hills and shout and shine.

" We will wander, hand in hand,
Ways where tall the toadstools stand,
Mile-stones white of Fairyland.

" While your eyes my lips shall kiss,
Dewy as a wild rose is,
Till they gaze on naught but bliss.

"On the meadows you will hear,
Leaning low your spirit ear,
Cautious footsteps drawing near.

"You will deem it but a bee,
Murmuring soft and sleepily,
Till your inner sight shall see

'Tis a presence passing slow,
All its shining hair ablow,
Through the white-tops' tossing snow.

" By the waters, if you will,
And your inmost soul be still,
Melody your ears shall fill.

" You will deem it but the stream
Rippling onward in a dream,
Till upon your gaze shall gleam
                  11

 
The Wind of Summer



"Arm of spray and throat of foam-
'Tis a spirit there aroam
Where the radiant waters comb.

"In the forest, if you heed,
You shall hear a magic reed
Sow sweet notes like silver seed.

You will deem your ears have heard
Stir of tree or song of bird,
Till your startled eyes are blurred

"By a vision, instant seen,
Naked gold and beryl green,
Glimmering bright the boughs between.

"Follow me ! and you shall see
Wonder-worlds of mystery
That are only known to me!"

Thus outside my city door
Speaks the Wind its wildwood lore,
Speaks and lo! I go once more.



12


 



THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST SPRING



Over the rocks she trails her locks,
Her mossv locks that drip, drip, drip;
Her sparkling eyes smile at the skies
In friendship-wise and fellowship;
While the gleam and glance of her countenance
Lull into trance the woodland places,
As over the rocks she trails her locks,
Her dripping locks that the long fern graces.

She pours clear ooze from her heart's cool cruse,
Its crystal cruse that drips, drips, drips;
And all the day its diamond spray
Is heard to play from her finger-tips;
And the slight soft sound makes haunted ground
Of the woods around that the sunlight laces,
As she pours clear ooze from her heart's cool cruse,
Its dripping cruse that no man traces.

She swims and swims with glimmering limbs,
With lucid limbs that drip, drip, drip;
Where beechen boughs build a leafy house
For her form to drowse or her feet to trip;
And the liquid beat of her rippling feet
Makes three-times sweet the forest mazes,
As she swims and swims with glimmering limbs,
With dripping limbs through the tV ilight's hazes.
                    13

 
The SI)irit of the Forest S)ring



Then wrapped in deeps of the wild she sleeps,
She whispering sleeps and drips, drips, drips;
Where moon and mist wreathe neck and wrist,
While, starry-whist, through the night she slips;
And the heavenly dream of her soul makes gleam
The falls that stream and the foam that races,
As wrapped in deeps of the wild she sleeps,
She dripping sleeps or starward gazes.



14


 



TO THE LEAF-CRICKET



             Small twilight singer
Of dew and mist: thou ghost-gray, gossamer winger
             Of dusk's dim glimmer,
How cool thy note sounds; how thy wings of shimmer
             Vibrate, soft-sighing,
Meseems, for Summer that is dead or dying.
             I stand and listen,
And at thy song the garden-beds, that glisten
             With rose and lily,
Seem touched with sadness; and the tuberose chilly,
Breathing around its cold and colorless breath,
Fills the pale evening with wan hints of death.

                       1I
             I see thee quaintly
Beneath the leaf; thy shell-shaped winglets faintly-
             As thin as spangle
Of cobwebbed rain-held up at airy angle;
             I hear thy tinkle,
Thy fairy notes, the silvery stillness sprinkle;
             Investing wholly
The moonlight with divinest melancholy:
             Until, in seeming,
I see the Spirit of the Summer dreaming
Amid her ripened orchards, apple-strewn,
Her great, grave eyes fixed on the harvest-moon.

 
To t le Leaf-Cricket



                     III
             As dew-drops beady,
As mist minute, thy notes ring low and reedy:
             The vaguest vapor
Of melody, now near; now, like some taper
             Of sound, far fading-
Thou will-o'-wisp of music aye evading.
             Among the bowers,
The fog-washed stalks of Autumn's weeds and flowers,
             By hill and hollow,
I hear thy murmur and in vain I follow-
Thou jack-o'-lantern voice, thou elfin cry,
Thou dirge, that tellest Beauty she must die.

                     IV
             And when the frantic
Wild winds of Autumn with the dead leaves antic:
             And walnuts scatter
The mire of lanes; and dropping acorns patter
             In grove and forest,
Like some frail grief, with the rude blast thou warrest,
             Sending thy slender
Far cry against the gale, that, rough, untender,
             Untouched of sorrow,
Sweeps thee aside, where, haply, I to-morrow
Shall find thee lying, tiny, cold and crushed,
Thy weak wings folded and thy music hushed.


 


THE OWLET



                    I
When dusk is drowned in drowsy dreams,
   And slow the hues of sunset die;
   When firefly and moth go by,
And in still streams the new-moon gleams,
       A sickle in the sky;
   Then from the hills there comes a cry,
           The owlet's cry;
A shivering voice that sobs and screams,
       That, frightened, screams:

    "Who is it, who is it, who
    Who rides through the dusk and dew,
         With a pair o' horns,
         As thin as thorns,
     And face a bubble blue
         Who, who, who!
     Who is it, who is it, who"

                    II
When night has dulled the lily's white,
   And opened wide the primrose eyes;
   When pale mists rise and veil the skies,
And 'round the height in whispering flight
       The night-wind sounds and sighs;
   Then in the woods again it cries,
           The owlet cries;
A shivering voice that calls in fright,
       In maundering fright:
.3        1           1

 
The Owlet



     ' Who is it, who is it, who
     Who walks with a shuffling shoe,
         'Mid the gusty trees,
         With a face none sees,
     And a form as ghostly too
         Who, who, who!
     Who is it, who is it, who

                 III
When midnight leans a listening ear
   And tinkles on her insect lutes;
   When 'mid the roots the cricket flutes,
And marsh and mere, now far, now near,
       A jack-o'-lantern foots;
   Then o'er the pool again it hoots,
          The owlet hoots;
A voice that shivers as with fear,
       That cries in fear:

     Who is it, who is it, who
     Who creeps with his glow-worm crew
         Above the mire
         With a corpse-light fire,
     As only dead men do
        Who, who, who!
     Who is it, who is it, who"



18


 


VINE AND SYCAMORE



                     I
Here where a tree and its wild liana,
  Leaning over the streamlet, grow,
Once a nymph, like the moon'd Diana,
  Sat in the ages long ago.
Sat with a mortal with whom she had mated,
  Sat and laughed with a mortal youth,
Ere he of the forest, the god who hated,
  Saw and changed to a form uncouth. ...

                    II
Once in the woods she had heard a shepherd,
  Heard a reed in a golden glade;
Followed, and clad in the skin of a leopard,
Found him fluting within the shade.
Found him sitting with bare brown shoulder,
Lithe and strong as a sapling oak,
And leaning over a mossy boulder,
Love in her wildwood heart awoke.

                    III
White she was as a dogwood flower,
Pinkly white as a wild-crab bloom,
Sweetly white as a hawtree bower
Full of dew and the May's perfume.
He who saw her above him burning,
Beautiful, naked, in light arrayed,
Deemed her Diana, and from her turning,
Leapt to his feet and fled afraid.
                    19

 
Vine and Sycamore



                    IV
Far she followed and called and pleaded,
  Ever he fled with never a look;
Fled, till he came to this spot, deep-reeded,
  Came to the bank of this forest brook.
Here for a moment he stopped and listened,
  Heard in her voice her heart's despair,
Saw in her eyes the love that glistened,
  Sank on her bosom and rested there.

                    V
Close to her beauty she strained and pressed him,
  Held and bound him with kiss; on kiss;
Soft with her arms and her lips caressed him,
  Sweeter of touch than a blossom is.
Spoke to his heart, and with sweet persuasion
  Mastered his soul till its fear was flown;
Spoke to his soul till its mortal evasion
  Vanished, and body and soul were her own.

                    VI
Many a day had they met and mated,
  Many a day by this woodland brook,
When he of the forest, the god who hated,
  Came on their love and changed with a look.
There on the shore, while they joyed and jested,
He in the shadows, unseen, espied
Her, like the goddess Diana breasted,
Him, like Endymion by her side.
                    20

 
Vine an(c Syidcamnore



                 VII
Lo! at a word, at a sign, their folded
Limbs and bodies assumed new form,
Hers to the shape of a tree were molded,
His to a vine with surrounding arm. . ..
So they stand with their limbs enlacing,
Nymph and mortal, upon this shore,
He forever a vine embracing
Her a silvery sycamore.



21


 


THE POET



He stands above all worldly schism,
And, gazing over life's abysm,
Beholds within the starry range
Of heaven laws of death and change,
That, through his soul's prophetic prism.
Are turned to rainbows wild and strange.

Through nature is his hope made surer
Of that ideal, his allurer,
By whom his life is upward drawn
To mount pale pinnacles of dawn,
'Mid which all that is fairer, purer
Of love and lore it comes upon.

An alkahest, that makes gold metal
Of dross, his mind is-where one petal
Of one wild-rose will all outweigh
The piled-up facts of everyday-
Where commonplaces, there that settle,
Are changed to things of heavenly ray.

He climbs by steps of stars and flowers,
Companioned of the dreaming hours,
And sets his feet in pastures where
No merely mortal feet may fare;
And higher than the stars he towers
Though lowlier than the flowers there.

 
'I'lie Poet



His comrades are his own high fancies
And thoughts in which his soul romances;
And every part of heaven or earth
He visits, lo, assumes new worth;
And touched with loftier traits and trances
Re-shines as with a lovelier birth.

He is the play, likewise the player;
The word that's said, also the sayer;
And in the books of heart and head
There is no thing he has not read;
Of time and tears he is the weigher,
And mouthpiece 'twixt the quick and dead.

He dies: but, mounting ever higher,
Wings Phoenix-like from out his pyre
Above our mortal day and night,
Clothed on with sempiternal light;
And raimented in thought's far fire
Flames on in everlasting flight.

Unseen, yet seen, on heights of visions,
Above all praise and world derisions,
His spirit and his deathless brood
Of dreams fare on, a multitude,
While on the pillar of great missions
His name and place are granite-hewed.



23


 






EVENING ON THE FARM



From out the hills, where twilight stands,
Above the shadowy pasture lands,
With strained and strident cry,
Beneath pale skies that sunset bands,
The bull-bats fly.

A cloud hangs over, strange of shape,
And, colored like the half-ripe grape,
Seems some uneven stain
On heaven's azure, thin as crape,
And blue as rain.

By ways, that sunset's sardonyx
O'erflares, and gates the farmboy clicks,
Through which the cattle came,
The mullein stalks seem giant wicks
Of downy flame.

From woods no glimmer enters in,
Above the streams that wandering win
From out the violet hills,
Those haunters of the dusk begin,
The whippoorwills.
                  24

 Evening on the Farm



Adown the dark the firefly marks
Its flight in golden-emerald sparks;
And, loosened from his chain,
The shaggy watchdog bounds and barks,
And barks again.

Each breeze brings scents of hill-heaped hay;
And now an owlet, far away,
Cries twice or thrice, " Twohoo;
And cool dim moths of mottled gray
Flit through the dew.

The silence sounds its frog-bassoon,
Where on the woodland creek's lagoon,
Pale as a ghostly girl
Lost 'mid the trees, looks down the moon
With face of pearl.

Within the shed where logs, late hewed,
Smell forest-sweet, and chips of wood
Make blurs of white and brown,
The brood-hen cuddles her warm brood
Of teetering down.

The clattering guineas in the tree
Din for a time; and quietly
The henhouse, near the fence,
Sleeps, save for some brief rivalry
Of cocks and hens.
                  25

 
E-vening (on the Farm



A cow-bell tinkles by the rails,
Where, streaming white in foaming pails,
Milk makes an uddery sound;
While overhead the black bat trails
Around and 'round.

The night is still. The slow cows chew
A drowsy cud. The bird that flew
And sang is in its nest.
It is the time of falling dew,
Of dreams and rest.

The brown bees sleep; and 'round the walk,
The garden path, from stalk to stalk
The bungling beetle booms,
Where two soft shadows stand and talk
Among the blooms.

The stars are thick: the light is dead
That dyed the West: and Drowsyhead,
Tuning his cricket-pipe,
Nods, and some apple, round and red,
Drops over ripe.

Now down the road, that shambles by,
A window, shining like an eye
Through climbing rose and gourd,
Shows where Toil sups and these things lie,
His heart and hoard.


 





THE BROOK



To it the forest tells
The mystery that haunts its heart and folds
Its form in cogitation deep, that holds
The shadow of each myth that dwells
In nature-be it Nymph or Fay or Faun-
And whispering of them to the dales and dells,
      It wanders on and on.

To it the heaven shows
The secret of its soul; true images
Of dreams that form its aspect: and with these
Reflected in its countenance it goes,
With pictures of the skies, the dusk and dawn,
Within its breast, as every blossom knows,
     For them to gaze upon.

Through it the world-soul sends
Its heart's creating pulse that beats and sings
The music of maternity whence springs
All life; and shaping earthly ends,
From the deep sources of the heavens drawn,
Planting its ways with beauty, on it wends,
     On and forever on.


 



SUMMER NOONTIDE



   The slender snail clings to the leaf,
   Gray on its silvered underside;
And slowly, slowlier than the snail, with brief
Bright steps, whose ripening touch foretells the sheaf,
   Her warm hands berry-dyed,
   Comes down the tanned Noontide.

   The pungent fragrance of the mint
   And pennyroyal drench her gown,
That leaves long shreds of trumpet-blossom tint
Among the thorns, and everywhere the glint
   Of gold and white and brown
   Her flowery steps waft down.

   The leaves, like hands with emerald veined,
   Along her way try their wild best
To reach the jewel-whose hot hue was drained
From some rich rose that all the June contained-
   The butterfly, soft pressed
   Upon her sunny breast.

   Her shawl, the lace-like elder bloom,
   She hangs upon the hillside brake,
Smelling of warmth and of her breast's perfume,
And, lying in the citron-colored gloom
   Beside the lilied lake,
   She stares the buds awake.
                      28

 
"Ii in iu el X ()( u1t i (e



    Or, with a smile, through watery deeps
    She leads the oaring turtle's legs;
Or guides the crimson fish, that swims and sleeps,
From pad to pad, from which the young frog leaps;
    And to its nest's green eggs
    The bird that pleads and begs.

    Then 'mid the fields of unmown hay
    She shows the bees where sweets are found;
And points the butterflies, at airy play,
And dragonflies, along the water-way,
    Where honeyed flowers abound
    For them to flicker 'round.

    Or where ripe apples pelt with gold
    Some barn-around which, coned with snow,
The wild-potato blooms-she mounts its old
Mossed roof, and through warped sides, the knots have
       holed,
   Lets her long glances glow
   Into the loft below.

   To show the mud-wasp at its cell
   Slenderly busy; swallows, too,
Packing against a beam their nest's clay shell;
And crouching in the dark the owl as well
   With all her downy crew
   Of owlets gray of hue.
                      29

 
Su ninel  N ,ont i(e



   These are her joys, and until dusk
   Lounging she walks where reapers reap,
From sultry raiment shaking scents of musk.
Rustling the corn within its silken husk,
   And driving down heav'n's deep
   White herds of clouds like sheep.



30


 


                     HEAT

                       I
Now is it as if Spring had never been,
    And Winter but a memory and dream,
Here where the Summer stands, her lap of green
        Heaped high with bloom and beam,
Among her blackberry-lilies, low that lean
    To kiss her feet; or, freckle-browed, that stare
Upon the dragonfly which, slimly seen,
    Like a blue jewel flickering in her hair,
       Sparkles above them there.

                      II
Knee-deep among the tepid pools the cows
   Chew a slow cud or switch a slower tail.
Half-sunk in sleep beneath the beechen boughs,
       Where thin the wood-gnats ail.
From bloom to bloom the languid butterflies drowse;
   The sleepy bees make hardly any sound;
The only things the sunrays can arouse,
   It seems, are two black beetles rolling round
       Upon the dusty ground.
                      III
Within its channel glares the creek and shrinks,
   Beneath whose rocks the furtive crawfish hides
In stagnant places, where the green frog blinks,
       And water-spider glides.
                      v

 
Heat



Far hotter seems it for the bird that drinks,
    The startled kingfisher that screams and flies;
Hotter and lonelier for the purple pinks
    Of weeds that bloom, whose sultry perfumes rise
       Stifling the swooning skies.

                       IV
From ragweed fallows, rye fields, heaped with sheaves,
    From blistering rocks, no moss or lichens crust,
And from the road, where every hoof-stroke heaves
       A cloud of burning dust,
The hotness quivers, making limp the leaves,
   That loll like tongues of panting hounds. The heat
Is a wan wimple that the Summer weaves,
    A veil, in which she wraps, as in a sheet,
       The shriveling corn and wheat.

                      V
Furious, incessant in the weeds and briers
   The sawing weed-bugs sing; and, heat-begot,
The grasshoppers, so many strident wires,
       Staccato fiercely hot:
A lash of whirling sound that never tires,
   The locust flails the noon, where harnessed Thirst,
Beside the road-spring, many a shod hoof mires,
   Into the trough thrusts his hot head, immersed,
       'Round which cool bubbles burst.
                      32

 Heat



                     VI

The sad, sweet voice of some wood-spirit who
   Laments while watching a loved oak tree die.
From the deep forest comes the wood-dove's coo,
       A long, lost, lonely cry.
Oh, for a breeze, a mighty wind to woo
   The woods to stormy laughter; sow like grain
The world with freshness of invisible dew,
   And pile above far, fevered hill and plain.
       Vast bastions black with rain.



f.


 


JULY



    Now 'tis the time when, tall,
The long blue torches of the bellflower gleam
Among the trees; and, by the wooded stream.
    In many a fragrant ball,
    Blooms of the button-bush fall.
    Let us go forth and seek
Woods where the wild plums redden and the beech
Plumps its packed burs; and, swelling, just in reach,
   The pawpaw, emerald sleek,
   Ripens along the creek.
   Now 'tis the time when ways
Of glimmering green flaunt white the misty plumes
Of the black-cohosh; and through bramble glooms,
    A blur of orange rays,
    The butterfly-blossoms blaze.
    Let us go forth and hear
The spiral music that the locusts beat,
And that small spray of sound, so grassy sweet,
   Dear to a country ear,
   The cricket's summer cheer.
   Now golden celandine
Is hairy hung with silvery sacks of seeds,
And bugled o'er with freckled gold, like beads,
   Beneath the fox-grape vine,
   The jewel-weed's blossoms shine.
                      :34

 
.1 it I y



    Let us go forth and see
The dragon- and the butterfly, like gems,
Spangling the sunbeams; and the clover stems.
    Weighed down by many a bee,
    Nodding mellifluously.

    Now morns are full of song;
The catbird and the redbird and the jay
Upon the hilltops rouse the rosy day.
    Who, dewy, blithe, and strong,
    Lures their wild wings along.

    Now noons are full of dreams;
The clouds of heaven and the wandering breeze
Follow a vision; and the flowers and trees,
    The hills and fields and streams,
    Are lapped in mystic gleams.

    The nights are full of love:
The stars and moon take up the golden tale
Of the sunk sun, and passionate and pale,
   Mixing their fires above,
   Grow eloquent thereof.

   Such days are like a sigh
That beauty heaves from a full heart of bliss:
Such nights are like the sweetness of a kiss
   On lips that half deny.
   The warm lips of July.
                       35


 






TO THE LOCUST



Thou pulse of hotness, who, with reed-like breast,
  Makest meridian music, long and loud,
Accentuating summer!---dost thy best
  To make the sunbeams fiercer, and to crowd
With lonesomeness the long, close afternoon -
  When Labor leans, swart-faced and beady browed,
Upon his sultry scythe-thou tangible tune
  Of heat, whose waves incessantly arise
  Quivering and clear beneath the cloudless skies.

Thou singest, and upon his haggard hills
  Drouth yawns and rubs his heavy eyes and wakes;
Brushes the hot hair from his face; and fills
  The land with death as sullenly he takes
Downward his dusty way: 'midst woods and fields
  At every pool his burning thirst he slakes;
No grove so deep, no bank so high it shields
  A spring from him; no creek evades his eye;
  He needs but look and they are withered dry.

Thou singest, and thy song is as a spell
Of somnolence to charm the land with sleep;
A thorn of sound that pierces dale and dell,
Diffusing slumber over vale and steep.
                      36

 
             T()X tilesl( o1s


Sleepy the forest, nodding sleepy boughs:
  The pastures sleepy with their sleepy sheep;
Sleepy the creek where sleepily the cows
  Stand knee-deep: and the very heaven seems
  Sleepy and lost in undetermined dreams.

Art thou a rattle that Monotony.
  Summer's dull nurse, old sister of slow Time,
Shakes for Day's peevish pleasure, who in glee
Takes its discordant music for sweet rhyme'
Or oboe that the Summer Noontide plays,
Sitting with Ripeness 'neath the orchard-tree,
Trying repeatedly the same shrill phrase,
Until the musky peach with drowsiness
Drops, and the hum of bees grows less and less


 


YOUNG SEPTEMBER



                        I
With a look and a laugh where the stream was flowing,
    September led me along