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

took,?Praising the farmer's home. He only spake,?Looking into the sunset o'er the lake,?Like one to whom the far-off is most near:?"Yes, most folks think it has a pleasant look;?I love it for my good old mother's sake,?Who lived and died here in the peace of God!"?The lesson of his words we pondered o'er,?As silently we turned the eastern flank?Of the mountain, where its shadow deepest sank,?Doubling the night along our rugged road:?We felt that man was more than his abode,--?The inward life than Nature's raiment more;?And the warm sky, the sundown-tinted hill,?The forest and the lake, seemed dwarfed and dim?Before the saintly soul, whose human will?Meekly in the Eternal footsteps trod,?Making her homely toil and household ways?An earthly echo of the song of praise?Swelling from angel lips and harps of seraphim.?1862.
THE VANISHERS.
Sweetest of all childlike dreams?In the simple Indian lore?Still to me the legend seems?Of the shapes who flit before.
Flitting, passing, seen and gone,?Never reached nor found at rest,?Baffling search, but beckoning on?To the Sunset of the Blest.
From the clefts of mountain rocks,?Through the dark of lowland firs,?Flash the eyes and flow the locks?Of the mystic Vanishers!
And the fisher in his skiff,?And the hunter on the moss,?Hear their call from cape and cliff,?See their hands the birch-leaves toss.
Wistful, longing, through the green?Twilight of the clustered pines,?In their faces rarely seen?Beauty more than mortal shines.
Fringed with gold their mantles flow?On the slopes of westering knolls;?In the wind they whisper low?Of the Sunset Land of Souls.
Doubt who may, O friend of mine!?Thou and I have seen them too;?On before with beck and sign?Still they glide, and we pursue.
More than clouds of purple trail?In the gold of setting day;?More than gleams of wing or sail?Beckon from the sea-mist gray.
Glimpses of immortal youth,?Gleams and glories seen and flown,?Far-heard voices sweet with truth,?Airs from viewless Eden blown;
Beauty that eludes our grasp,?Sweetness that transcends our taste,?Loving hands we may not clasp,?Shining feet that mock our haste;
Gentle eyes we closed below,?Tender voices heard once more,?Smile and call us, as they go?On and onward, still before.
Guided thus, O friend of mine?Let us walk our little way,?Knowing by each beckoning sign?That we are not quite astray.
Chase we still, with baffled feet,?Smiling eye and waving hand,?Sought and seeker soon shall meet,?Lost and found, in Sunset Land?1864.
THE PAGEANT.
A sound as if from bells of silver,?Or elfin cymbals smitten clear,?Through the frost-pictured panes I hear.
A brightness which outshines the morning,?A splendor brooking no delay,?Beckons and tempts my feet away.
I leave the trodden village highway?For virgin snow-paths glimmering through?A jewelled elm-tree avenue;
Where, keen against the walls of sapphire,?The gleaming tree-bolls, ice-embossed,?Hold up their chandeliers of frost.
I tread in Orient halls enchanted,?I dream the Saga's dream of caves?Gem-lit beneath the North Sea waves!
I walk the land of Eldorado,?I touch its mimic garden bowers,?Its silver leaves and diamond flowers!
The flora of the mystic mine-world?Around me lifts on crystal stems?The petals of its clustered gems!
What miracle of weird transforming?In this wild work of frost and light,?This glimpse of glory infinite!
This foregleam of the Holy City?Like that to him of Patmos given,?The white bride coming down from heaven!
How flash the ranked and mail-clad alders,?Through what sharp-glancing spears of reeds?The brook its muffled water leads!
Yon maple, like the bush of Horeb,?Burns unconsumed: a white, cold fire?Rays out from every grassy spire.
Each slender rush and spike of mullein,?Low laurel shrub and drooping fern,?Transfigured, blaze where'er I turn.
How yonder Ethiopian hemlock?Crowned with his glistening circlet stands!?What jewels light his swarthy hands!
Here, where the forest opens southward,?Between its hospitable pines,?As through a door, the warm sun shines.
The jewels loosen on the branches,?And lightly, as the soft winds blow,?Fall, tinkling, on the ice below.
And through the clashing of their cymbals?I hear the old familiar fall?Of water down the rocky wall,
Where, from its wintry prison breaking,?In dark and silence hidden long,?The brook repeats its summer song.
One instant flashing in the sunshine,?Keen as a sabre from its sheath,?Then lost again the ice beneath.
I hear the rabbit lightly leaping,?The foolish screaming of the jay,?The chopper's axe-stroke far away;
The clamor of some neighboring barn-yard,?The lazy cock's belated crow,?Or cattle-tramp in crispy snow.
And, as in some enchanted forest?The lost knight hears his comrades sing,?And, near at hand, their bridles ring,--
So welcome I these sounds and voices,?These airs from far-off summer blown,?This life that leaves me not alone.
For the white glory overawes me;?The crystal terror of the seer?Of Chebar's vision blinds me here.
Rebuke me not, O sapphire heaven!?Thou stainless earth, lay not on me,?Thy keen reproach of purity,
If, in this August presence-chamber,?I sigh for summer's leaf-green gloom?And warm airs thick with odorous bloom!
Let the strange frost-work sink and crumble,?And let the loosened tree-boughs swing,?Till all their bells of silver ring.
Shine warmly down, thou sun of noontime,?On this chill pageant, melt and move?The winter's frozen heart with love.
And, soft and low, thou wind south-blowing,?Breathe through a veil of tenderest