Lyrics of Earth | Page 6

poisonous ivies, red-bunched elderberries,
And pièd
blossoms to the heart's desire,
Gray mullein towering into yellow
bloom,
Pink-tasseled milkweed, breathing dense perfume,
And

swarthy vervain, tipped with violet fire.
To hear at eve the bleating of far flocks,
The mud-hen's whistle from
the marsh at morn;
To skirt with deafened ears and brain o'erborne

Some foam-filled rapid charging down its rocks
With iron roar of
waters; far away
Across wide-reeded meres, pensive with noon,
To
hear the querulous outcry of the loon;
To lie among deep rocks, and
watch all day
On liquid heights the snowy clouds melt by;
Or hear
from wood-capped mountain-brows the jay
Pierce the bright morning
with his jibing cry.
To feast on summer sounds; the jolted wains,
The thrasher humming
from the farm near by,
The prattling cricket's intermittent cry,
The
locust's rattle from the sultry lanes;
Or in the shadow of some oaken
spray,
To watch, as through a mist of light and dreams,
The far-off
hay-fields, where the dusty teams
Drive round and round the
lessening squares of hay,
And hear upon the wind, now loud, now
low,
With drowsy cadence half a summer's day,
The clatter of the
reapers come and go.
Far violet hills, horizons filmed with showers,
The murmur of cool
streams, the forest's gloom,
The voices of the breathing grass, the
hum
Of ancient gardens overbanked with flowers:
Thus, with a
smile as golden as the dawn,
And cool fair fingers radiantly divine,

The mighty mother brings us in her hand,
For all tired eyes and
foreheads pinched and wan,
Her restful cup, her beaker of bright wine:

Drink, and be filled, and ye shall understand!
AT THE FERRY
On such a day the shrunken stream
Spends its last water and runs dry;

Clouds like far turrets in a dream
Stand baseless in the burning sky.

On such a day at every rod
The toilers in the hay-field halt,
With
dripping brows, and the parched sod
Yields to the crushing foot like

salt.
But here a little wind astir,
Seen waterward in jetting lines,
From
yonder hillside topped with fir
Comes pungent with the breath of
pines;
And here when all the noon hangs still,
White-hot upon the
city tiles,
A perfume and a wintry chill
Breathe from the yellow
lumber-piles.
And all day long there falls a blur
Of noises upon listless ears,
The
rumble of the trams, the stir
Of barges at the clacking piers;
The
champ of wheels, the crash of steam,
And ever, without change or
stay,
The drone, as through a troubled dream,
Of waters falling far
away.
A tug-boat up the farther shore
Half pants, half whistles, in her
draught;
The cadence of a creaking oar
Falls drowsily; a corded raft

Creeps slowly in the noonday gleam,
And wheresoe'er a shadow
sleeps
The men lie by, or half a-dream,
Stand leaning at the idle
sweeps.
And all day long in the quiet bay
The eddying amber depths retard,

And hold, as in a ring, at play,
The heavy saw-logs notched and
scarred;
And yonder between cape and shoal,
Where the long
currents swing and shift,
An aged punt-man with his pole
Is
searching in the parted drift.
At moments from the distant glare
The murmur of a railway steals

Round yonder jutting point the air
Is beaten with the puff of wheels;

And here at hand an open mill,
Strong clamor at perpetual drive,

With changing chant, now hoarse, now shrill,
Keeps dinning like a
mighty hive.
A furnace over field and mead,
The rounding noon hangs hard and
white;
Into the gathering heats recede
The hollows of the Chelsea
height;

But under all to one quiet tune,
A spirit in cool depths

withdrawn,
With logs, and dust, and wrack bestrewn,
The stately
river journeys on.
I watch the swinging currents go
Far down to where, enclosed and
piled,
The logs crowd, and the Gatineau
Comes rushing from the
northern wild.
I see the long low point, where close
The shore-lines,
and the waters end,
I watch the barges pass in rows
That vanish at
the tapering bend.
I see as at the noon's pale core--
A shadow that lifts clear and floats--

The cabin'd village round the shore,
The landing and the fringe of
boats;
Faint films of smoke that curl and wreathe,
And upward with
the like desire
The vast gray church that seems to breathe
In heaven
with its dreaming spire.
And there the last blue boundaries rise,
That guard within their
compass furled
This plot of earth: beyond them lies
The mystery of
the echoing world;
And still my thought goes on, and yields
New
vision and new joy to me,
Far peopled hills, and ancient fields,
And
cities by the crested sea.
I see no more the barges pass,
Nor mark the ripple round the pier,

And all the uproar, mass on mass,
Falls dead upon a vacant ear.

Beyond the tumult of the mills,
And all the city's sound and strife,

Beyond the waste, beyond the hills,
I look far out and dream of life.
SEPTEMBER
Now hath the summer reached her golden close,
And, lost amid her
corn-fields, bright of soul,
Scarcely perceives from her divine repose

How near, how swift, the inevitable goal:
Still, still, she smiles,
though from her careless feet The bounty and the fruitful strength are
gone,
And through the soft long wondering days goes on
The silent
sere decadence sad and sweet.

The kingbird and the pensive thrush are fled,
Children of