Its use in New England in connection with _Epigma repens _dates from a very early day, some claiming that the first Pilgrims so used it, in affectionate memory of the vessel and its English flower association.
Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars, And nursed by winter gales, With petals of the sleeted spars, And leaves of frozen sails! What had she in those dreary hours, Within her ice-rimmed bay, In common with the wild-wood flowers, The first sweet smiles of May?
Yet, "God be praised!" the Pilgrim said, Who saw the blossoms peer Above the brown leaves, dry and dead, "Behold our Mayflower here!" "God wills it: here our rest shall be, Our years of wandering o'er; For us the Mayflower of the sea Shall spread her sails no more." O sacred flowers of faith and hope, As sweetly now as then Ye bloom on many a birchen slope, In many a pine-dark glen.
Behind the sea-wall's rugged length, Unchanged, your leaves unfold, Like love behind the manly strength Of the brave hearts of old.
So live the fathers in their sons, Their sturdy faith be ours, And ours the love that overruns Its rocky strength with flowers! The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day Its shadow round us draws; The Mayflower of his stormy bay, Our Freedom's struggling cause.
But warmer suns erelong shall bring To life the frozen sod; And through dead leaves of hope shall spring Afresh the flowers of God! 1856.
THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN.
I.
O'er the bare woods, whose outstretched hands Plead with the leaden heavens in vain, I see, beyond the valley lands, The sea's long level dim with rain.
Around me all things, stark and dumb, Seem praying for the snows to come, And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone, With winter's sunset lights and dazzling morn atone.
II.
Along the river's summer walk, The withered tufts of asters nod; And trembles on its arid stalk The boar plume of the golden-rod.
And on a ground of sombre fir, And azure-studded juniper, The silver birch its buds of purple shows, And scarlet berries tell where bloomed the sweet wild-rose! III.
With mingled sound of horns and bells, A far-heard clang, the wild geese fly, Storm-sent, from Arctic moors and fells, Like a great arrow through the sky, Two dusky lines converged in one, Chasing the southward-flying sun; While the brave snow-bird and the hardy jay Call to them from the pines, as if to bid them stay.
IV.
I passed this way a year ago The wind blew south; the noon of day Was warm as June's; and save that snow Flecked the low mountains far away, And that the vernal-seeming breeze Mocked faded grass and leafless trees, I might have dreamed of summer as I lay, Watching the fallen leaves with the soft wind at play.
V.
Since then, the winter blasts have piled The white pagodas of the snow On these rough slopes, and, strong and wild, Yon river, in its overflow Of spring-time rain and sun, set free, Crashed with its ices to the sea; And over these gray fields, then green and gold, The summer corn has waved, the thunder's organ rolled.
VI.
Rich gift of God! A year of time What pomp of rise and shut of day, What hues wherewith our Northern clime Makes autumn's dropping woodlands gay, What airs outblown from ferny dells, And clover-bloom and sweetbrier smells, What songs of brooks and birds, what fruits and flowers, Green woods and moonlit snows, have in its round been ours! VII.
I know not how, in other lands, The changing seasons come and go; What splendors fall on Syrian sands, What purple lights on Alpine snow! Nor how the pomp of sunrise waits On Venice at her watery gates; A dream alone to me is Arno's vale, And the Alhambra's halls are but a traveller's tale.
VIII.
Yet, on life's current, he who drifts Is one with him who rows or sails And he who wanders widest lifts No more of beauty's jealous veils Than he who from his doorway sees The miracle of flowers and trees, Feels the warm Orient in the noonday air, And from cloud minarets hears the sunset call to prayer! IX.
The eye may well be glad that looks Where Pharpar's fountains rise and fall; But he who sees his native brooks Laugh in the sun, has seen them all.
The marble palaces of Ind Rise round him in the snow and wind; From his lone sweetbrier Persian Hafiz smiles, And Rome's cathedral awe is in his woodland aisles.
X.
And thus it is my fancy blends The near at hand and far and rare; And while the same horizon bends Above the silver-sprinkled hair Which flashed the light of morning skies On childhood's wonder-lifted eyes, Within its round of sea and sky and field, Earth wheels with all her zones, the Kosmos stands revealed.
XI.
And thus the sick man on his bed, The toiler to his task-work bound, Behold their prison-walls outspread, Their clipped horizon widen round! While freedom-giving fancy waits, Like Peter's angel at the gates, The power is theirs to baffle care and pain, To bring the lost world back, and make it theirs again! XII.
What lack of goodly company, When masters of the ancient lyre Obey my call, and trace for me Their words of mingled tears and fire! I talk with Bacon, grave and wise, I read the world with Pascal's eyes; And priest and sage, with solemn brows austere, And poets, garland-bound, the Lords of Thought, draw near.
XIII.
Methinks, O friend, I hear thee say, "In vain the human heart we mock; Bring living guests who love the day, Not ghosts who fly at crow of cock! The herbs we share with flesh and blood Are better than ambrosial food With laurelled shades." I grant it, nothing loath, But doubly blest is he who can partake of both.
XIV.
He who might Plato's banquet grace, Have I not seen before me sit, And watched his puritanic face, With more than Eastern wisdom lit?
Shrewd mystic! who, upon the back Of his Poor Richard's Almanac, Writing the Sufi's song, the Gentoo's dream, Links Manu's age of thought to Fulton's age of steam! XV.
Here too, of answering love secure, Have I not welcomed to my hearth The gentle pilgrim troubadour, Whose songs have girdled half the earth; Whose pages, like the magic mat Whereon the Eastern lover sat, Have borne me over Rhine-land's purple vines, And Nubia's tawny sands, and Phrygia's mountain pines! XVI.
And he, who to the lettered wealth Of ages adds the lore unpriced, The wisdom and the moral health, The ethics of the school of Christ; The statesman to his holy trust, As the Athenian archon, just, Struck down, exiled like him for truth alone, Has he not graced my home with beauty all his own?
XVII.
What greetings smile, what farewells wave, What loved ones enter and depart! The good, the beautiful, the brave, The Heaven-lent treasures of the heart! How conscious seems the frozen sod And beechen slope whereon they trod The oak-leaves rustle, and the dry grass bends Beneath the shadowy feet of lost or absent friends.
XVIII.
Then ask not why to these bleak hills I cling, as clings the tufted moss, To bear the winter's lingering chills, The mocking spring's perpetual loss.
I dream of lands where summer smiles, And soft winds blow from spicy isles, But scarce would Ceylon's breath of flowers be sweet, Could I not feel thy soil, New England, at my feet! XIX.
At times I long for gentler skies, And bathe in dreams of softer air, But homesick tears would fill the eyes That saw the Cross without the Bear.
The pine must whisper to the palm, The north-wind break the tropic calm; And with the dreamy languor of the Line, The North's keen virtue blend, and strength to beauty join.
XX.
Better to stem with heart and hand The roaring tide of life, than lie, Unmindful, on its flowery strand, Of God's occasions drifting by Better with naked nerve to bear The needles of this goading air, Than, in the lap of sensual ease, forego The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know.
XXI.
Home of my heart! to me more fair Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls, The painted, shingly town-house where The freeman's vote for Freedom falls! The simple roof where prayer is made, Than Gothic groin and colonnade; The living temple of the heart of man, Than Rome's sky-mocking vault, or many-spired Milan! XXII.
More dear thy equal village schools, Where rich and poor the Bible read, Than classic halls where Priestcraft rules, And Learning wears the chains of Creed; Thy glad Thanksgiving, gathering in The scattered sheaves of home and kin, Than the mad license ushering Lenten pains, Or holidays of slaves who laugh and dance in chains.
XXIII.
And sweet homes nestle in these dales, And perch along these wooded swells; And, blest beyond Arcadian vales, They hear the sound of Sabbath bells! Here dwells no perfect man sublime, Nor woman winged before her time, But with the faults and follies of the race, Old home-bred virtues hold their not unhonored place.
XXIV.
Here manhood struggles for the sake Of mother, sister, daughter, wife, The graces and the loves which make The music of the march of life; And woman, in her daily round Of duty, walks on holy ground.
No unpaid menial tills the soil, nor here Is the bad lesson learned at human rights to sneer.
XXV.
Then let the icy north-wind blow The trumpets of the coming storm, To arrowy sleet and blinding snow Yon slanting lines of rain transform.
Young hearts shall hail the drifted cold, As gayly as I did of old; And I, who watch them through the frosty pane, Unenvious, live in them my boyhood o'er again.
XXVI.
And I will trust that He who heeds The life that hides in mead and wold, Who hangs yon alder's crimson beads, And stains these mosses green and gold, Will still, as He hath done, incline His gracious care to me and mine; Grant what we ask aright, from wrong debar, And, as the earth grows dark, make brighter every star! XXVII.
I have not seen, I may not see, My hopes for man take form in fact, But God will give the victory In due time; in that faith I act.
And lie who sees the future sure, The baffling present may endure, And bless, meanwhile, the unseen Hand that leads The heart's desires beyond the halting step of deeds.
XXVIII.
And thou, my song, I send thee forth, Where harsher songs of mine have flown; Go, find a place at home and hearth Where'er thy singer's name is known; Revive for him the kindly thought Of friends; and they who love him not, Touched by some strain of thine, perchance may take The hand he proffers all, and thank him for thy sake.
1857.
THE FIRST FLOWERS For ages on our river borders, These tassels in their tawny bloom, And willowy studs of downy silver, Have prophesied of Spring to come.
For ages have the unbound waters Smiled on them from their pebbly hem, And the clear carol of the robin And song of bluebird welcomed them.
But never yet from smiling river, Or song of early bird, have they Been greeted with a gladder welcome Than whispers from my heart to-day.
They break the spell of cold and darkness, The weary watch of sleepless pain; And from my heart, as from the river, The ice of winter melts again.
Thanks, Mary! for this wild-wood token Of Freya's footsteps drawing near; Almost, as in the rune of Asgard, The growing of the grass I hear.
It is as if the pine-trees called me From ceiled room and silent books, To see the dance of woodland shadows, And hear the song of April brooks! As in the old Teutonic ballad Of Odenwald live bird and tree, Together live in bloom and music, I blend in song thy flowers and thee.
Earth's rocky tablets bear forever The dint of rain and small bird's track Who knows but that my idle verses May leave some trace by Merrimac! The bird that trod the mellow layers Of the young earth is sought in vain; The cloud is gone that wove the sandstone, From God's design, with threads of rain! So, when this fluid age we live in Shall stiffen round my careless rhyme, Who made the vagrant tracks may puzzle The savants of the coming time; And, following out their dim suggestions, Some idly-curious hand may draw My doubtful portraiture, as Cuvier Drew fish and bird from fin and claw.
And maidens in the far-off twilights, Singing my words to breeze and stream, Shall wonder if the old-time Mary Were real, or the rhymer's dream! 1st 3d mo., 1857.
THE OLD BURYING-GROUND.
Our vales are sweet with fern and rose, Our hills are maple-crowned; But not from them our fathers chose The village burying-ground.
The dreariest spot in all the land To Death they set apart; With scanty grace from Nature's hand, And none from that of Art.
A winding wall of mossy stone, Frost-flung and broken, lines A lonesome acre thinly grown With grass and wandering vines.
Without the wall a birch-tree shows Its drooped and tasselled head; Within, a stag-horned sumach grows, Fern-leafed, with spikes of red.
There, sheep that graze the neighboring plain Like white ghosts come and go, The farm-horse drags his fetlock chain, The cow-bell tinkles slow.
Low moans the river from its bed, The distant pines reply; Like mourners shrinking from the dead, They stand apart and sigh.
Unshaded smites the summer sun, Unchecked the winter blast; The school-girl learns the place to shun, With glances backward cast.
For thus our fathers testified, That he might read who ran, The emptiness of human pride, The nothingness of man.
They dared not plant the grave with flowers, Nor dress the funeral sod, Where, with a love as deep as ours, They left their dead with God.
The hard and thorny path they kept From beauty turned aside; Nor missed they over those who slept The grace to life denied.
Yet still the wilding flowers would blow, The golden leaves would fall, The seasons come, the seasons go, And God be good to all.
Above the graves the' blackberry hung In bloom and green its wreath, And harebells swung as if they rung The chimes of peace beneath.
The beauty Nature loves to share, The gifts she hath for all, The common light, the common air, O'ercrept the graveyard's wall.
It knew the glow of eventide, The sunrise and the noon, And glorified and sanctified It slept beneath the moon.
With flowers or snow-flakes for its sod, Around the seasons ran, And evermore the love of God Rebuked the fear of man.
We dwell with fears on either hand, Within a daily strife, And spectral problems waiting stand Before the gates of life.
The doubts we vainly seek to solve, The truths we know, are one; The known and nameless stars revolve Around the Central Sun.
And if we reap as we have sown, And take the dole we deal, The law of pain is love alone, The wounding is to heal.
Unharmed from change to change we glide, We fall as in our dreams; The far-off terror at our side A smiling angel seems.
Secure on God's all-tender heart Alike rest great and small; Why fear to lose our little part, When He is pledged for all?
O fearful heart and troubled brain Take hope and strength from this,-- That Nature never hints in vain, Nor prophesies amiss.
Her wild birds sing the same sweet stave, Her lights and airs are given Alike to playground and the grave; And over both is Heaven.
1858 THE PALM-TREE.
Is it the palm, the cocoa-palm, On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm?
Or is it a ship in the breezeless calm?
A ship whose keel is of palm beneath, Whose ribs of palm have a palm-bark sheath, And a rudder of palm it steereth with.
Branches of palm are its spars and rails, Fibres of palm are its woven sails, And the rope is of palm that idly trails! What does the good ship bear so well?
The cocoa-nut with its stony shell, And the milky sap of its inner cell.
What are its jars, so smooth and fine, But hollowed nuts, filled with oil and wine, And the cabbage that ripens under the Line?
Who smokes his nargileh, cool and calm?
The master, whose cunning and skill could charm Cargo and ship from the bounteous palm.
In the cabin he sits on a palm-mat soft, From a beaker of palm his drink is quaffed, And a palm-thatch shields from the sun aloft! His dress is woven of palmy strands, And he holds a palm-leaf scroll in his hands, Traced with the Prophet's wise commands! The turban folded about his head Was daintily wrought of the palm-leaf braid, And the fan that cools him of palm was made.
Of threads of palm was the carpet spun Whereon he kneels when the day is done, And the foreheads of Islam are bowed as one! To him the palm is a gift divine, Wherein all uses of man combine,-- House, and raiment, and food, and wine! And, in the hour of his great release, His need of the palm shall only cease With the shroud wherein he lieth in peace.
"Allah il Allah!" he sings his psalm, On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm; "Thanks to Allah who gives the palm!" 1858.
THE RIVER PATH.
No bird-song floated down the hill, The tangled bank below was still; No rustle from the birchen stem, No ripple from the water's hem.
The dusk of twilight round us grew, We felt the falling of the dew; For, from us, ere the day was done, The wooded hills shut out the sun.
But on the river's farther side We saw the hill-tops glorified,-- A tender glow, exceeding fair, A dream of day without its glare.
With us the damp, the chill, the gloom With them the sunset's rosy bloom; While dark, through willowy vistas seen, The river rolled in shade between.
From out the darkness where we trod, We gazed upon those bills of God, Whose light seemed not of moon or sun.
We spake not, but our thought was one.
We paused, as if from that bright shore Beckoned our dear ones gone before; And stilled our beating hearts to hear The voices lost to mortal ear! Sudden our pathway turned from night; The hills swung open to the light; Through their green gates the sunshine showed, A long, slant splendor downward flowed.
Down glade and glen and bank it rolled; It bridged the shaded stream with gold; And, borne on piers of mist, allied The shadowy with the sunlit side! "So," prayed we, "when our feet draw near The river dark, with mortal fear, "And the night cometh chill with dew, O Father! let Thy light break through! "So let the hills of doubt divide, So bridge with faith the sunless tide! "So let the eyes that fail on earth On Thy eternal hills look forth; "And in Thy beckoning angels know The dear ones whom we loved below!" 1880.
MOUNTAIN PICTURES.
I.FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSET Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail, Uplift against the blue walls of the sky Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave Its golden net-work in your belting woods, Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods, And on your kingly brows at morn and eve Set crowns of fire! So shall my soul receive Haply the secret of your calm and strength, Your unforgotten beauty interfuse My common life, your glorious shapes and hues And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come, Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in billowy length From the sea-level of my lowland home! They rise before me! Last night's thunder-gust Roared not in vain: for where its lightnings thrust Their tongues of fire, the great peaks seem so near, Burned clean of mist, so starkly bold and clear, I almost pause the wind in the pines to hear, The loose rock's fall, the steps of browsing deer.
The clouds that shattered on yon slide-worn walls And splintered on the rocks their spears of rain Have set in play a thousand waterfalls, Making the dusk and silence of the woods Glad with the laughter of the chasing floods, And luminous with blown spray and silver gleams, While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streams Sing to the freshened meadow-lands again.
So, let me hope, the battle-storm that beats The land with hail and fire may pass away With its spent thunders at the break of day, Like last night's clouds, and leave, as it retreats, A greener earth and fairer sky behind, Blown crystal-clear by Freedom's Northern wind! II.

MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSET.
I would I were a painter, for the sake Of a sweet picture, and of her who led, A fitting guide, with reverential tread, Into that mountain mystery.

First a lake Tinted with sunset; next the wavy lines Of far receding hills; and yet more far, Monadnock lifting from his night of pines His rosy forehead to the evening star.
Beside us, purple-zoned, Wachuset laid His head against the West, whose warm light made His aureole; and o'er him, sharp and clear, Like a shaft of lightning in mid-launching stayed, A single level cloud-line, shone upon By the fierce glances of the sunken sun, Menaced the darkness with its golden spear! So twilight deepened round us.

Still and black The great woods climbed the mountain at our back; And on their skirts, where yet the lingering day On the shorn greenness of the clearing lay, The brown old farm-house like a bird's-nest hung.
With home-life sounds the desert air was stirred The bleat of sheep along the hill we heard, The bucket plashing in the cool, sweet well, The pasture-bars that clattered as they fell; Dogs barked, fowls fluttered, cattle lowed; the gate Of the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry weight Of sun-brown children, listening, while they swung, The welcome sound of supper-call to hear; And down the shadowy lane, in tinklings clear, The pastoral curfew of the cow-bell rung.
Thus soothed and pleased, our backward path we took, Praising the farmer's home.

He only spake, Looking into the sunset o'er the lake, Like one to whom the far-off is most near: "Yes, most folks think it has a pleasant look; I love it for my good old mother's sake, Who lived and died here in the peace of God!" The lesson of his words we pondered o'er, As silently we turned the eastern flank Of the mountain, where its shadow deepest sank, Doubling the night along our rugged road: We felt that man was more than his abode,-- The inward life than Nature's raiment more; And the warm sky, the sundown-tinted hill, The forest and the lake, seemed dwarfed and dim Before the saintly soul, whose human will Meekly in the Eternal footsteps trod, Making her homely toil and household ways An earthly echo of the song of praise Swelling from angel lips and harps of seraphim.
1862.
THE VANISHERS.
Sweetest of all childlike dreams In the simple Indian lore Still to me the legend seems Of the shapes who flit before.
Flitting, passing, seen and gone, Never reached nor found at rest, Baffling search, but beckoning on To the Sunset of the Blest.
From the clefts of mountain rocks, Through the dark of lowland firs, Flash the eyes and flow the locks Of the mystic Vanishers! And the fisher in his skiff, And the hunter on the moss, Hear their call from cape and cliff, See their hands the birch-leaves toss.
Wistful, longing, through the green Twilight of the clustered pines, In their faces rarely seen Beauty more than mortal shines.
Fringed with gold their mantles flow On the slopes of westering knolls; In the wind they whisper low Of the Sunset Land of Souls.
Doubt who may, O friend of mine! Thou and I have seen them too; On before with beck and sign Still they glide, and we pursue.
More than clouds of purple trail In the gold of setting day; More than gleams of wing or sail Beckon from the sea-mist gray.
Glimpses of immortal youth, Gleams and glories seen and flown, Far-heard voices sweet with truth, Airs from viewless Eden blown; Beauty that eludes our grasp, Sweetness that transcends our taste, Loving hands we may not clasp, Shining feet that mock our haste; Gentle eyes we closed below, Tender voices heard once more, Smile and call us, as they go On and onward, still before.
Guided thus, O friend of mine Let us walk our little way, Knowing by each beckoning sign That we are not quite astray.
Chase we still, with baffled feet, Smiling eye and waving hand, Sought and seeker soon shall meet, Lost and found, in Sunset Land.
1864.
THE PAGEANT.
A sound as if from bells of silver, Or elfin cymbals smitten clear, Through the frost-pictured panes I hear.
A brightness which outshines the morning, A splendor brooking no delay, Beckons and tempts my feet away.
I leave the trodden village highway For virgin snow-paths glimmering through A jewelled elm-tree avenue; Where, keen against the walls of sapphire, The gleaming tree-bolls, ice-embossed, Hold up their chandeliers of frost.
I tread in Orient halls enchanted, I dream the Saga's dream of caves Gem-lit beneath the North Sea waves! I walk the land of Eldorado, I touch its mimic garden bowers, Its silver leaves and diamond flowers! The flora of the mystic mine-world Around me lifts on crystal stems The petals of its clustered gems! What miracle of weird transforming In this wild work of frost and light, This glimpse of glory infinite! This foregleam of the Holy City Like that to him of Patmos given, The white bride coming down from heaven! How flash the ranked and mail-clad alders, Through what sharp-glancing spears of reeds The brook its muffled water leads! Yon maple, like the bush of Horeb, Burns unconsumed: a white, cold fire Rays out from every grassy spire.
Each slender rush and spike of mullein, Low laurel shrub and drooping fern, Transfigured, blaze where'er I turn.
How yonder Ethiopian hemlock Crowned with his glistening circlet stands! What jewels light his swarthy hands! Here, where the forest opens southward, Between its hospitable pines, As through a door, the warm sun shines.
The jewels loosen on the branches, And lightly, as the soft winds blow, Fall, tinkling, on the ice below.
And through the clashing of their cymbals I hear the old familiar fall Of water down the rocky wall, Where, from its wintry prison breaking, In dark and silence hidden long, The brook repeats its summer song.
One instant flashing in the sunshine, Keen as a sabre from its sheath, Then lost again the ice beneath.
I hear the rabbit lightly leaping, The foolish screaming of the jay, The chopper's axe-stroke far away; The clamor of some neighboring barn-yard, The lazy cock's belated crow, Or cattle-tramp in crispy snow.
And, as in some enchanted forest The lost knight hears his comrades sing, And, near at hand, their bridles ring,-- So welcome I these sounds and voices, These airs from far-off summer blown, This life that leaves me not alone.
For the white glory overawes me; The crystal terror of the seer Of Chebar's vision blinds me here.
Rebuke me not, O sapphire heaven! Thou stainless earth, lay not on me, Thy keen reproach of purity, If, in this August presence-chamber, I sigh for summer's leaf-green gloom And warm airs thick with odorous bloom! Let the strange frost-work sink and crumble, And let the loosened tree-boughs swing, Till all their bells of silver ring.
Shine warmly down, thou sun of noontime, On this chill pageant, melt and move The winter's frozen heart with love.
And, soft and low, thou wind south-blowing, Breathe through a veil of tenderest haze Thy prophecy of summer days.
Come with thy green relief of promise, And to this dead, cold splendor bring The living jewels of the spring! 1869.
THE PRESSED GENTIAN.
The time of gifts has come again, And, on my northern window-pane, Outlined against the day's brief light, A Christmas token hangs in sight.
The wayside travellers, as they pass, Mark the gray disk of clouded glass; And the dull blankness seems, perchance, Folly to their wise ignorance.
They cannot from their outlook see The perfect grace it hath for me; For there the flower, whose fringes through The frosty breath of autumn blew, Turns from without its face of bloom To the warm tropic of my room, As fair as when beside its brook The hue of bending skies it took.
So from the trodden ways of earth, Seem some sweet souls who veil their worth, And offer to the careless glance The clouding gray of circumstance.
They blossom best where hearth-fires burn, To loving eyes alone they turn The flowers of inward grace, that hide Their beauty from the world outside.
But deeper meanings come to me, My half-immortal flower, from thee! Man judges from a partial view, None ever yet his brother knew; The Eternal Eye that sees the whole May better read the darkened soul, And find, to outward sense denied, The flower upon its inmost side 1872.
A MYSTERY.
The river hemmed with leaning trees Wound through its meadows green; A low, blue line of mountains showed The open pines between.
One sharp, tall peak above them all Clear into sunlight sprang I saw the river of my dreams, The mountains that I sang! No clue of memory led me on, But well the ways I knew; A feeling of familiar things With every footstep grew.
Not otherwise above its crag Could lean the blasted pine; Not otherwise the maple hold Aloft its red ensign.
So up the long and shorn foot-hills The mountain road should creep; So, green and low, the meadow fold Its red-haired kine asleep.
The river wound as it should wind; Their place the mountains took; The white torn fringes of their clouds Wore no unwonted look.
Yet ne'er before that river's rim Was pressed by feet of mine, Never before mine eyes had crossed That broken mountain line.
A presence, strange at once and known, Walked with me as my guide; The skirts of some forgotten life Trailed noiseless at my side.
Was it a dim-remembered dream?
Or glimpse through ions old?
The secret which the mountains kept The river never told.
But from the vision ere it passed A tender hope I drew, And, pleasant as a dawn of spring, The thought within me grew, That love would temper every change, And soften all surprise, And, misty with the dreams of earth, The hills of Heaven arise.
1873.
A SEA DREAM.
We saw the slow tides go and come, The curving surf-lines lightly drawn, The gray rocks touched with tender bloom Beneath the fresh-blown rose of dawn.
We saw in richer sunsets lost The sombre pomp of showery noons; And signalled spectral sails that crossed The weird, low light of rising moons.
On stormy eves from cliff and head We saw the white spray tossed and spurned; While over all, in gold and red, Its face of fire the lighthouse turned.
The rail-car brought its daily crowds, Half curious, half indifferent, Like passing sails or floating clouds, We saw them as they came and went.
But, one calm morning, as we lay And watched the mirage-lifted wall Of coast, across the dreamy bay, And heard afar the curlew call, And nearer voices, wild or tame, Of airy flock and childish throng, Up from the water's edge there came Faint snatches of familiar song.
Careless we heard the singer's choice Of old and common airs; at last The tender pathos of his voice In one low chanson held us fast.
A song that mingled joy and pain, And memories old and sadly sweet; While, timing to its minor strain, The waves in lapsing cadence beat.
.