Narrative Poems, part 5, Among Hill etc | Page 3

in the barn the rhythmic flails
Beat out a
harvest measure.
We heard the night-hawk's sullen plunge,
The crow his tree-mates
calling
The shadows lengthening down the slopes
About our feet
were falling.
And through them smote the level sun
In broken lines of splendor,

Touched the gray rocks and made the green
Of the shorn grass more
tender.
The maples bending o'er the gate,
Their arch of leaves just tinted

With yellow warmth, the golden glow
Of coming autumn hinted.
Keen white between the farm-house showed,
And smiled on porch
and trellis,
The fair democracy of flowers
That equals cot and
palace.
And weaving garlands for her dog,
'Twixt chidings and caresses,
A
human flower of childhood shook
The sunshine from her tresses.
Clear drawn against the hard blue sky,
The peaks had winter's
keenness;
And, close on autumn's frost, the vales
Had more than
June's fresh greenness.
Again the sodden forest floors
With golden lights were checkered,

Once more rejoicing leaves in wind
And sunshine danced and
flickered.
It was as if the summer's late
Atoning for it's sadness
Had borrowed
every season's charm
To end its days in gladness.
I call to mind those banded vales
Of shadow and of shining,

Through which, my hostess at my side,
I drove in day's declining.

We held our sideling way above
The river's whitening shallows,
By
homesteads old, with wide-flung barns
Swept through and through by
swallows;
By maple orchards, belts of pine
And larches climbing darkly
The
mountain slopes, and, over all,
The great peaks rising starkly.
You should have seen that long hill-range
With gaps of brightness
riven,--
How through each pass and hollow streamed
The purpling
lights of heaven,--
On either hand we saw the signs
Of fancy and of shrewdness,

Where taste had wound its arms of vines
Round thrift's uncomely
rudeness.
The sun-brown farmer in his frock
Shook hands, and called to Mary

Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came,
White-aproned from her
dairy.
Her air, her smile, her motions, told
Of womanly completeness;
A
music as of household songs
Was in her voice of sweetness.
Not fair alone in curve and line,
But something more and better,

The secret charm eluding art,
Its spirit, not its letter;--
An inborn grace that nothing lacked
Of culture or appliance,
The
warmth of genial courtesy,
The calm of self-reliance.
Before her queenly womanhood
How dared our hostess utter
The
paltry errand of her need
To buy her fresh-churned butter?
She led the way with housewife pride,
Her goodly store disclosing,

Full tenderly the golden balls
With practised hands disposing.
Then, while along the western hills
We watched the changeful glory

Of sunset, on our homeward way,
I heard her simple story.

The early crickets sang; the stream
Plashed through my friend's
narration
Her rustic patois of the hills
Lost in my free-translation.
"More wise," she said, "than those who swarm
Our hills in middle
summer,
She came, when June's first roses blow,
To greet the early
comer.
"From school and ball and rout she came,
The city's fair, pale
daughter,
To drink the wine of mountain air
Beside the Bearcamp
Water.
"Her step grew firmer on the hills
That watch our homesteads over;

On cheek and lip, from summer fields,
She caught the bloom of
clover.
"For health comes sparkling in the streams
From cool Chocorua
stealing
There's iron in our Northern winds;
Our pines are trees of
healing.
"She sat beneath the broad-armed elms
That skirt the
mowing-meadow,
And watched the gentle west-wind weave
The
grass with shine and shadow.
"Beside her, from the summer heat
To share her grateful screening,

With forehead bared, the farmer stood,
Upon his pitchfork leaning.
"Framed in its damp, dark locks, his face
Had nothing mean or
common,--
Strong, manly, true, the tenderness
And pride beloved
of woman.
"She looked up, glowing with the health
The country air had brought
her,
And, laughing, said: 'You lack a wife,
Your mother lacks a
daughter.
"'To mend your frock and bake your bread
You do not need a lady

Be sure among these brown old homes
Is some one waiting ready,--

"'Some fair, sweet girl with skilful hand
And cheerful heart for
treasure,
Who never played with ivory keys,
Or danced the polka's
measure.'
"He bent his black brows to a frown,
He set his white teeth tightly.

''T is well,' he said, 'for one like you
To choose for me so lightly.
"You think, because my life is rude
I take no note of sweetness
I
tell you love has naught to do
With meetness or unmeetness.
"'Itself its best excuse, it asks
No leave of pride or fashion
When
silken zone or homespun frock
It stirs with throbs of passion.
"'You think me deaf and blind: you bring
Your winning graces hither

As free as if from cradle-time
We two had played together.
"'You tempt me with your laughing eyes,
Your cheek of sundown's
blushes,
A motion as of waving grain,
A music as of thrushes.
"'The plaything of your summer sport,
The spells you weave around
me
You cannot at your will undo,
Nor leave me as you found me.
"'You go as lightly as you came,
Your life is well without me;
What
care you that these hills will close
Like prison-walls about me?
"'No mood is mine to seek a wife,
Or daughter for my mother
Who
loves you loses in that love
All power to love another!
"'I dare your pity or your scorn,
With pride your own