Poems of Nature, part 4, Snow Bound etc | Page 3

against the chimney-back,--?The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,?And on its top the stout back-stick;?The knotty forestick laid apart,?And filled between with curious art?The ragged brush; then, hovering near,?We watched the first red blaze appear,?Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam?On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,?Until the old, rude-furnished room?Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;?While radiant with a mimic flame?Outside the sparkling drift became,?And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree?Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.?The crane and pendent trammels showed,?The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed;?While childish fancy, prompt to tell?The meaning of the miracle,?Whispered the old rhyme: "_Under the tree,?When fire outdoors burns merrily,?There the witches are making tea_."
The moon above the eastern wood?Shone at its full; the hill-range stood?Transfigured in the silver flood,?Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,?Dead white, save where some sharp ravine?Took shadow, or the sombre green?Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black?Against the whiteness at their back.?For such a world and such a night?Most fitting that unwarming light,?Which only seemed where'er it fell?To make the coldness visible.
Shut in from all the world without,?We sat the clean-winged hearth about,?Content to let the north-wind roar?In baffled rage at pane and door,?While the red logs before us beat?The frost-line back with tropic heat;?And ever, when a louder blast?Shook beam and rafter as it passed,?The merrier up its roaring draught?The great throat of the chimney laughed;?The house-dog on his paws outspread?Laid to the fire his drowsy head,?The cat's dark silhouette on the wall?A couchant tiger's seemed to fall;?And, for the winter fireside meet,?Between the andirons' straddling feet,?The mug of cider simmered slow,?The apples sputtered in a row,?And, close at hand, the basket stood?With nuts from brown October's wood.
What matter how the night behaved??What matter how the north-wind raved??Blow high, blow low, not all its snow?Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow.?O Time and Change!--with hair as gray?As was my sire's that winter day,?How strange it seems, with so much gone?Of life and love, to still live on!?Ah, brother! only I and thou?Are left of all that circle now,--?The dear home faces whereupon?That fitful firelight paled and shone.?Henceforward, listen as we will,?The voices of that hearth are still;?Look where we may, the wide earth o'er?Those lighted faces smile no more.?We tread the paths their feet have worn,?We sit beneath their orchard trees,?We hear, like them, the hum of bees?And rustle of the bladed corn;?We turn the pages that they read,?Their written words we linger o'er,?But in the sun they cast no shade,?No voice is heard, no sign is made,?No step is on the conscious floor!?Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,?(Since He who knows our need is just,)?That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.?Alas for him who never sees?The stars shine through his cypress-trees?Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,?Nor looks to see the breaking day?Across the mournful marbles play!?Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,?The truth to flesh and sense unknown,?That Life is ever lord of Death,?And Love can never lose its own!
We sped the time with stories old,?Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,?Or stammered from our school-book lore?The Chief of Gambia's "golden shore."?How often since, when all the land?Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand,?As if a far-blown trumpet stirred?The languorous sin-sick air, I heard?"_Does not the voice of reason cry,?Claim the first right which Nature gave,?From the red scourge of bondage fly,?Nor deign to live a burdened slave_!"?Our father rode again his ride?On Memphremagog's wooded side;?Sat down again to moose and samp?In trapper's hut and Indian camp;?Lived o'er the old idyllic ease?Beneath St. Francois' hemlock-trees;?Again for him the moonlight shone?On Norman cap and bodiced zone;?Again he heard the violin play?Which led the village dance away,?And mingled in its merry whirl?The grandam and the laughing girl.?Or, nearer home, our steps he led?Where Salisbury's level marshes spread?Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;?Where merry mowers, hale and strong,?Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along?The low green prairies of the sea.?We shared the fishing off Boar's Head,?And round the rocky Isles of Shoals?The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;?The chowder on the sand-beach made,?Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,?With spoons of clam-shell from the pot.?We heard the tales of witchcraft old,?And dream and sign and marvel told?To sleepy listeners as they lay?Stretched idly on the salted hay,?Adrift along the winding shores,?When favoring breezes deigned to blow?The square sail of the gundelow?And idle lay the useless oars.
Our mother, while she turned her wheel?Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,?Told how the Indian hordes came down?At midnight on Cocheco town,?And how her own great-uncle bore?His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.?Recalling, in her fitting phrase,?So rich and picturesque and free,?(The common unrhymed poetry?Of simple life and country ways,)?The story of her early days,--?She made us welcome to her home;?Old hearths grew wide to give us room;?We stole with her a frightened look?At the gray wizard's conjuring-book,?The fame whereof went far and wide?Through