In Divers Tones | Page 8

with time, set warm in orchards, and meadows, and wheat,
Dotting the broad bright slopes outspread to southward and eastward,
Wind-swept all day long, blown by the south-east wind.
Skirting the
sunbright uplands stretches a riband of meadow, Shorn of the laboring
grass, bulwarked well from the sea,
Fenced on its seaward border
with long clay dikes from the turbid Surge and flow of the tides vexing
the Westmoreland shores. Yonder, toward the left, lie broad the
Westmoreland marshes,-- Miles on miles they extend, level, and grassy,

and dim,
Clear from the long red sweep of flats to the sky in the
distance, Save for the outlying heights, green-rampired Cumberland
Point; Miles on miles outrolled, and the river-channels divide them,--
Miles on miles of green, barred by the hurtling gusts.
Miles on miles beyond the tawny bay is Minudie.
There are the low
blue hills; villages gleam at their feet. Nearer a white sail shines across
the water, and nearer
Still are the slim, gray masts of fishing boats
dry on the flats. Ah, how well I remember those wide red flats, above
tide-mark Pale with scurf of the salt, seamed and baked in the sun!

Well I remember the piles of blocks and ropes, and the net-reels Wound
with the beaded nets, dripping and dark from the sea! Now at this
season the nets are unwound; they hang from the rafters Over the
fresh-stowed hay in upland barns, and the wind
Blows all day
through the chinks, with the streaks of sunlight,
and sways them
Softly at will, or they lie heaped in the gloom of a
loft.
Now at this season the reels are empty and idle; I see them Over the
lines of the dikes, over the gossiping grass.
Now at this season they
swing in the long strong wind, thro' the lonesome Golden afternoon,
shunned by the foraging gulls.
Near about sunset the crane will
journey homeward above them; Round them, under the moon, all the
calm night long,
Winnowing soft gray wings of marsh-owls wander
and wander,
Now to the broad, lit marsh, now to the dusk of the dike.

Soon, thro' their dew-wet frames, in the live keen freshness of
morning, Out of the teeth of the dawn blows back the awakening wind.
Then, as the blue day mounts, and the low-shot shafts of the sunlight
Glance from the tide to the shore, gossamers jewelled with dew Sparkle
and wave, where late sea-spoiling fathoms of drift-net Myriad-meshed,
uploomed sombrely over the land.
Well I remember it all. The salt raw scent of the margin;
While, with
men at the windlass, groaned each reel, and the net, Surging in

ponderous lengths, uprose and coiled in its station; Then each man to
his home,--well I remember it all!
Yet, as I sit and watch, this present peace of the landscape,-- Stranded
boats, these reels empty and idle, the hush,
One gray hawk
slow-wheeling above yon cluster of haystacks,-- More than the
old-time stir this stillness welcomes me home.
Ah the old-time stir, how once it stung me with rapture,--
Old-time
sweetness, the winds freighted with honey and salt! Yet will I stay my
steps and not go down to the marsh-land,-- Muse and recall far off,
rather remember than see,--
Lest on too close sight I miss the darling
illusion,
Spy at their task even here the hands of chance and change.
THE SLAVE WOMAN.
Shedding cool drops upon the sun-baked clay,
The dripping jar,
brimful, she rests a space
On the well's dry white brink, and leans her
face,
Heavy with tears and many a heartsick day,
Down to the
water's lip, whence slips away
A rivulet thro' the hot, bright square
apace,
And lo! her brow casts off each servile trace--
The wave's
cool breath hath won her thoughts astray.
Ah desolate heart! Thy fate thou hast forgot
One moment; the dull
pain hath left those eyes
Whose yearning pierces time, and space, and
tears.
Thou seest what was once, but now is not,--
By Niger thy
bright home, thy Paradise,
Unscathed of flame, and foe, and hostile
spears.
THE MARVELLOUS WORK.
"Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me"--Whitman
Not yet, for all their quest of it, have men
Cast wholly by the ignoble
dread of truth!
Each of God's laws, if but so late discerned
Their
faiths upgrew unsuckled in it, fills
Their hearts with angry fears,

perchance lest God
Be dwarfed behind his own decrees, or made

Superfluous through his perfectness of deed!
But large increase of
knowledge in these days
Is come about us, fraught with ill for them

Whose creeds are cut too straight to hold new growth,
Whose faiths
are clamped against access of wisdom;
Fraught with some sadness,
too, for those just souls
Who, clothed in rigid teachings found too
scant,
Are fain to piece the dear accustomed garb,
Till here a liberal,
there a literal fragment,
Here new, there old, here bright, there dark,
disclose
Their vestiture a strange discordant motley.
But O rare
motley,--starred with thirst of truth,
Patched with desire of wisdom,
zoned about
With passion