Poems of Nature, part 2, Mountain Pictures etc | Page 5

ways unknown to all,?The promise of the waterfall.
Some vague, faint rumor to the vale?Had crept--perchance a hunter's tale--?Of its wild mirth of waters lost?On the dark woods through which it tossed.
Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhere?Whirled in mad dance its misty hair;?But who had raised its veil, or seen?The rainbow skirts of that Undine?
They sought it where the mountain brook?Its swift way to the valley took;?Along the rugged slope they clomb,?Their guide a thread of sound and foam.
Height after height they slowly won;?The fiery javelins of the sun?Smote the bare ledge; the tangled shade?With rock and vine their steps delayed.
But, through leaf-openings, now and then?They saw the cheerful homes of men,?And the great mountains with their wall?Of misty purple girdling all.
The leaves through which the glad winds blew?Shared. the wild dance the waters knew;?And where the shadows deepest fell?The wood-thrush rang his silver bell.
Fringing the stream, at every turn?Swung low the waving fronds of fern;?From stony cleft and mossy sod?Pale asters sprang, and golden-rod.
And still the water sang the sweet,?Glad song that stirred its gliding feet,?And found in rock and root the keys?Of its beguiling melodies.
Beyond, above, its signals flew?Of tossing foam the birch-trees through;?Now seen, now lost, but baffling still?The weary seekers' slackening will.
Each called to each: "Lo here! Lo there!?Its white scarf flutters in the air!"?They climbed anew; the vision fled,?To beckon higher overhead.
So toiled they up the mountain-slope?With faint and ever fainter hope;?With faint and fainter voice the brook?Still bade them listen, pause, and look.
Meanwhile below the day was done;?Above the tall peaks saw the sun?Sink, beam-shorn, to its misty set?Behind the hills of violet.
"Here ends our quest!" the seekers cried,?"The brook and rumor both have lied!?The phantom of a waterfall?Has led us at its beck and call."
But one, with years grown wiser, said?"So, always baffled, not misled,?We follow where before us runs?The vision of the shining ones.
"Not where they seem their signals fly,?Their voices while we listen die;?We cannot keep, however fleet,?The quick time of their winged feet.
"From youth to age unresting stray?These kindly mockers in our way;?Yet lead they not, the baffling elves,?To something better than themselves?
"Here, though unreached the goal we sought,?Its own reward our toil has brought:?The winding water's sounding rush,?The long note of the hermit thrush,
"The turquoise lakes, the glimpse of pond?And river track, and, vast, beyond?Broad meadows belted round with pines,?The grand uplift of mountain lines!
"What matter though we seek with pain?The garden of the gods in vain,?If lured thereby we climb to greet?Some wayside blossom Eden-sweet?
"To seek is better than to gain,?The fond hope dies as we attain;?Life's fairest things are those which seem,?The best is that of which we dream.
"Then let us trust our waterfall?Still flashes down its rocky wall,?With rainbow crescent curved across?Its sunlit spray from moss to moss.
"And we, forgetful of our pain,?In thought shall seek it oft again;?Shall see this aster-blossomed sod,?This sunshine of the golden-rod,
"And haply gain, through parting boughs,?Grand glimpses of great mountain brows?Cloud-turbaned, and the sharp steel sheen?Of lakes deep set in valleys green.
"So failure wins; the consequence?Of loss becomes its recompense;?And evermore the end shall tell?The unreached ideal guided well.
"Our sweet illusions only die?Fulfilling love's sure prophecy;?And every wish for better things?An undreamed beauty nearer brings.
"For fate is servitor of love;?Desire and hope and longing prove?The secret of immortal youth,?And Nature cheats us into truth.
"O kind allurers, wisely sent,?Beguiling with benign intent,?Still move us, through divine unrest,?To seek the loveliest and the best!
"Go with us when our souls go free,?And, in the clear, white light to be,?Add unto Heaven's beatitude?The old delight of seeking good!"?1878.
THE TRAILING ARBUTUS
I wandered lonely where the pine-trees made?Against the bitter East their barricade,?And, guided by its sweet?Perfume, I found, within a narrow dell,?The trailing spring flower tinted like a shell?Amid dry leaves and mosses at my feet.
From under dead boughs, for whose loss the pines?Moaned ceaseless overhead, the blossoming vines?Lifted their glad surprise,?While yet the bluebird smoothed in leafless trees?His feathers ruffled by the chill sea-breeze,?And snow-drifts lingered under April skies.
As, pausing, o'er the lonely flower I bent,?I thought of lives thus lowly, clogged and pent,?Which yet find room,?Through care and cumber, coldness and decay,?To lend a sweetness to the ungenial day?And make the sad earth happier for their bloom.?1879.
ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER.
This name in some parts of Europe is given to the season we call Indian Summer, in honor of the good St. Martin. The title of the poem was suggested by the fact that the day it refers to was the exact date of that set apart to the Saint, the 11th of November.
Though flowers have perished at the touch?Of Frost, the early comer,?I hail the season loved so much,?The good St. Martin's summer.
O gracious morn, with rose-red dawn,?And thin moon curving o'er it!?The old year's darling, latest born,?More loved than all before it!
How flamed the