Poems of Nature, part 3, Reminiscent Poems | Page 7

his side,
Thou hast
more than he can buy
In the reach of ear and eye,--

Outward

sunshine, inward joy
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!
Oh for boyhood's painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,

Health that mocks the doctor's rules,
Knowledge never learned of
schools,
Of the wild bee's morning chase,
Of the wild-flower's time
and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;

How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell,

And the ground-mole sinks his well;
How the robin feeds her
young,
How the oriole's nest is hung;
Where the whitest lilies blow,

Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the ground-nut trails its
vine,
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine;
Of the black wasp's
cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay,
And the architectural
plans
Of gray hornet artisans!
For, eschewing books and tasks,

Nature answers all he asks,
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Face to
face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy,--
Blessings on the
barefoot boy!
Oh for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,

When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for.
I was
rich in flowers and trees,
Humming-birds and honey-bees;
For my
sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade;
For my
taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;
Laughed
the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the night,

Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;

Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,

Mine, on bending orchard trees,

Apples of Hesperides!
Still as
my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or
knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot
boy!
Oh for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread;

Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door-stone, gray and rude!

O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,

Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung

fold;
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs' orchestra;

And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was
monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!
Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can

Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown
sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the
dew;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat

All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,

Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,
Made
to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil
Happy if
their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink
not in
Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst
know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!
1855.
MY PSALM.
I mourn no more my vanished years
Beneath a tender rain,
An April
rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.
The west-winds blow, and, singing low,
I hear the glad streams run;

The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful,
take the good I find,
The best of now and here.
I plough no more a desert land,
To harvest weed and tare;
The
manna dropping from God's hand
Rebukes my painful care.
I break my pilgrim staff, I lay
Aside the toiling oar;
The angel
sought so far away

I welcome at my door.
The airs of spring may never play
Among the ripening corn,
Nor
freshness of the flowers of May
Blow through the autumn morn.

Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
Through fringed lids to heaven,

And the pale aster in the brook
Shall see its image given;--
The woods shall wear their robes of praise,
The south-wind softly
sigh,
And sweet, calm days in golden haze
Melt down the amber
sky.
Not less shall manly deed and word
Rebuke an age of wrong;
The
graven flowers that wreathe the sword
Make not the blade less strong.
But smiting hands shall learn to heal,--
To build as to destroy;
Nor
less my heart for others feel
That I the more enjoy.
All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And
knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told.
Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track;

That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turned me
back;
That more and more a Providence
Of love is understood,
Making
the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good;--
That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,

Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight;
That care and trial seem at last,
Through Memory's sunset air,
Like
mountain-ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair;
That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all
the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.
And so the shadows fall apart,
And so the west-winds play;
And all
the windows of my heart
I open to the day.
1859.
THE WAITING.

I wait and watch: before my eyes
Methinks the night grows thin and
gray;
I wait and watch the eastern skies
To see the golden spears
uprise
Beneath the oriflamme of day!
Like one whose limbs are bound in trance
I hear the day-sounds swell
and grow,
And see across the twilight glance,
Troop after troop, in
swift