She is dreaming the earth below:—
This night she lost her lover
A hundred years ago.
A Noonday Melody
Everything goes to its rest;
The hills are asleep in the noon;
And life is as still in its nest
As the moon when she looks on a moon
In the depth of a calm river’s breast
As it steals through a midnight in June.
The streams have forgotten the sea
In the dream of their musical sound;
The sunlight is thick on the tree,
And the shadows lie warm on the ground—
So still, you may watch them and see
Every breath that awakens around.
The churchyard lies still in the heat,
With its handful of mouldering bone,
As still as the long stalk of wheat
In the shadow that sits by the stone,
As still as the grass at my feet
When I walk in the meadows alone.
The waves are asleep on the main,
And the ships are asleep on the wave;
And the thoughts are as still in my brain
As the echo that sleeps in the cave;
All rest from their labour and pain—
Then why should not I in my grave?
Who Lights the Fire?
Who lights the fire—that forth so gracefully
And freely frolicketh the fairy smoke?
Some pretty one who never felt the yoke—
Glad girl, or maiden more sedate than she.
Pedant it cannot, villain cannot be!
Some genius, may-be, his own symbol woke;
But puritan, nor rogue in virtue’s cloke,
Nor kitchen-maid has done it certainly!
Ha, ha! you cannot find the lighter out
For all the blue smoke’s pantomimic gesture—
His name or nature, sex or age or vesture!
The fire was lit by human care, no doubt—
But now the smoke is Nature’s tributary,
Dancing ’twixt man and nothing like a fairy.
Who Would Have Thought?
Who would have thought that even an idle song
Were such a holy and celestial thing
That wickedness and envy cannot sing—
That music for no moment lives with wrong?
I know this, for a very grievous throng,
Dark thoughts, low wishes, round my bosom cling,
And, underneath, the hidden holy spring
Stagnates because of their enchantment strong.
Blow, breath of heaven, on all this poison blow!
And, heart, glow upward to this gracious breath!
Between them, vanish, mist of sin and death,
And let the life of life within me flow!
Love is the green earth, the celestial air,
And music runs like dews and rivers there!
On a December Day
I
This is the sweetness of an April day;
The softness of the spring is on the face
Of the old year. She has no natural grace,
But something comes to her from far away
Out of the Past, and on her old decay
The beauty of her childhood you can trace.—
And yet she moveth with a stormy pace,
And goeth quickly.—Stay, old year, oh, stay!
We do not like new friends, we love the old;
With young, fierce, hopeful hearts we ill agree;
But thou art patient, stagnant, calm, and cold,
And not like that new year that is to be;—
Life, promise, love, her eyes may fill, fair child!
We know the past, and will not be beguiled.
II
Yet the free heart will not be captive long;
And if she changes often, she is free.
But if she changes: One has mastery
Who makes the joy the last in every song.
And so to-day I blessed the breezes strong
That swept the blue; I blessed the breezes free
That rolled wet leaves like rivers shiningly;
I blessed the purple woods I stood among.
“And yet the spring is better!” Bitterness
Came with the words, but did not stay with them.
“Accomplishment and promise! field and stem
New green fresh growing in a fragrant dress!
And we behind with death and memory!”
—Nay, prophet-spring! but I will follow thee.
Christmas Day, 1850
Beautiful stories wed with lovely days
Like words and music:—what shall be the tale
Of love and nobleness that might avail
To express in action what this sweetness says—
The sweetness of a day of airs and rays
That are strange glories on the winter pale?
Alas, O beauty, all my fancies fail!
I cannot tell a story in thy praise!
Thou hast, thou hast one—set, and sure to chime
With thee, as with the days of “winter wild;”
For Joy like Sorrow loves his blessed feet
Who shone from Heaven on Earth this Christmas-time
A Brother and a Saviour, Mary’s child!—
And so, fair day, thou hast thy story sweet.
To a February Primrose
I know not what among the grass thou art,
Thy nature, nor thy substance, fairest flower,
Nor what to other eyes thou hast of power
To send thine image through them to the heart;
But when I push the frosty leaves apart
And see thee hiding in thy wintry bower
Thou growest up within me from that hour,
And through the snow I with the spring depart.
I have no words. But fragrant is the breath,
Pale beauty, of thy second life within.
There is a wind that cometh for thy death,
But thou a life immortal dost begin,
Where in one soul, which is thy heaven, shall dwell
Thy spirit, beautiful Unspeakable!
In February
Now in the dark of February rains,
Poor lovers of the sunshine, spring is born,
The earthy fields are full of hidden corn,
And March’s violets bud along the lanes;
Therefore with joy believe in what remains.
And thou who dost not feel them, do not scorn
Our early songs for winter overworn,
And faith in God’s handwriting on the plains.
“Hope” writes he, “Love” in the first violet,
“Joy,” even from Heaven, in songs and winds and trees;
And having caught the happy words in these
While Nature labours with the letters yet,
Spring cannot cheat us, though her hopes be broken,
Nor leave us, for we know what God hath spoken.
The True
I envy the tree-tops that shake so high
In winds that fill them full of heavenly airs;
I envy every little cloud that shares
With unseen angels evening in the sky;
I envy most the youngest stars that lie
Sky-nested,
