Lyrics of Earth | Page 6

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the gathering heats recede?The hollows of the Chelsea height;?But under all to one quiet tune,?A spirit in cool depths withdrawn,?With logs, and dust, and wrack bestrewn,?The stately river journeys on.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 light, too fearful of the gloom;?The sun falls low, the secret word is said,?The mouldering woods grow silent as the tomb;?Even the fields have lost their sovereign grace,?The cone-flower and the marguerite; and no more,?Across the river's shadow-haunted floor,?The paths of skimming swallows interlace.
Already in the outland wilderness?The forests echo with unwonted dins;?In clamorous gangs the gathering woodmen press?Northward, and the stern winter's toil begins.?Around the long low shanties, whose rough lines?Break the sealed dreams of many an unnamed lake,?Already in the frost-clear morns awake?The crash and thunder of the falling pines.
Where the tilled earth, with all its fields set free,?Naked and yellow from the harvest lies,?By many a loft and busy granary,?The hum and tumult of the thrashers rise;?There the tanned farmers labor without slack,?Till twilight deepens round the spouting mill,?Feeding the loosened sheaves, or with fierce will,?Pitching waist-deep upon the dusty stack.
Still a brief while, ere the old year quite pass,?Our wandering steps and wistful eyes shall greet?The leaf, the water, the beloved grass;?Still from these haunts and this accustomed seat?I see the wood-wrapt city, swept with light,?The blue long-shadowed distance, and, between,?The dotted farm-lands with their parcelled green,?The dark pine forest and the watchful height.
I see the broad rough meadow stretched away?Into the crystal sunshine, wastes of sod,?Acres of withered vervain, purple-gray,?Branches of aster, groves of goldenrod;?And yonder, toward the sunlit summit, strewn?With shadowy boulders, crowned and swathed with weed, Stand ranks of silken thistles, blown to seed,?Long silver fleeces shining like the noon.
In far-off russet corn-fields, where the dry?Gray shocks