Lyrics of Earth | Page 5

river's length unfurled,
Pale silver down the fruited plain,?Grown great and stately with the rain.
Through miles of shadow and soft heat,?Where field and fallow, fence and tree,?Were all one world of greenery,?I heard the robin ringing sweet,?The sparrow piping silverly,
The thrushes at the forest's hem;?And as I went I sang with them.
CLOUD-BREAK
With a turn of his magical rod,?That extended and suddenly shone,?From the round of his glory some god?Looks forth and is gone.
To the summit of heaven the clouds?Are rolling aloft like steam;?There's a break in their infinite shrouds,?And below it a gleam.?O'er the drift of the river a whiff?Comes out from the blossoming shore;?And the meadows are greening, as if?They never were green before.
The islands are kindled with gold?And russet and emerald dye;?And the interval waters outrolled?Are more blue than the sky.?From my feet to the heart of the hills?The spirits of May intervene,?And a vapor of azure distills?Like a breath on the opaline green.
Only a moment!--and then?The chill and the shadow decline,?On the eyes of rejuvenate men?That were wide and divine.
THE MOON-PATH
The full, clear moon uprose and spread?Her cold, pale splendor o'er the sea;?A light-strewn path that seemed to lead?Outward into eternity.?Between the darkness and the gleam?An old-world spell encompassed me:?Methought that in a godlike dream?I trod upon the sea.
And lo! upon that glimmering road,?In shining companies unfurled,?The trains of many a primal god,?The monsters of the elder world;?Strange creatures that, with silver wings,?Scarce touched the ocean's thronging floor,?The phantoms of old tales, and things?Whose shapes are known no more.
Giants and demi-gods who once?Were dwellers of the earth and sea,?And they who from Deucalion's stones,?Rose men without an infancy;?Beings on whose majestic lids?Time's solemn secrets seemed to dwell,?Tritons and pale-limbed Nereids,?And forms of heaven and hell.
Some who were heroes long of yore,?When the great world was hale and young;?And some whose marble lips yet pour?The murmur of an antique tongue;?Sad queens, whose names are like soft moans,?Whose griefs were written up in gold;?And some who on their silver thrones?Were goddesses of old.
As if I had been dead indeed,?And come into some after-land,?I saw them pass me, and take heed,?And touch me with each mighty hand;?And evermore a murmurous stream,?So beautiful they seemed to me,?Not less than in a godlike dream?I trod the shining sea.
COMFORT OF THE FIELDS
What would'st thou have for easement after grief,?When the rude world hath used thee with despite,?And care sits at thine elbow day and night,?Filching thy pleasures like a subtle thief??To me, when life besets me in such wise,?'Tis sweetest to break forth, to drop the chain,?And grasp the freedom of this pleasant earth,?To roam in idleness and sober mirth,?Through summer airs and summer lands, and drain?The comfort of wide fields unto tired eyes.
By hills and waters, farms and solitudes,?To wander by the day with wilful feet;?Through fielded valleys wide with yellowing wheat;?Along gray roads that run between deep woods,?Murmurous and cool; through hallowed slopes of pine,?Where the long daylight dreams, unpierced, unstirred, And only the rich-throated thrush is heard;?By lonely forest brooks that froth and shine?In bouldered crannies buried in the hills;?By broken beeches tangled with wild vine,?And log-strewn rivers murmurous with mills.
In upland pastures, sown with gold, and sweet?With the keen perfume of the ripening grass,?Where wings of birds and filmy shadows pass,?Spread thick as stars with shining marguerite;?To haunt old fences overgrown with brier,?Muffled in vines, and hawthorns, and wild cherries,?Rank 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