Poems of Nature, part 4, Snow Bound etc | Page 7

strife,?The worldling's eyes shall gather dew,?Dreaming in throngful city ways?Of winter joys his boyhood knew;?And dear and early friends--the few?Who yet remain--shall pause to view?These Flemish pictures of old days;?Sit with me by the homestead hearth,?And stretch the hands of memory forth?To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze!?And thanks untraced to lips unknown?Shall greet me like the odors blown?From unseen meadows newly mown,?Or lilies floating in some pond,?Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;?The traveller owns the grateful sense?Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,?And, pausing, takes with forehead bare?The benediction of the air.?1866.
MY TRIUMPH.
The autumn-time has come;?On woods that dream of bloom,?And over purpling vines,?The low sun fainter shines.
The aster-flower is failing,?The hazel's gold is paling;?Yet overhead more near?The eternal stars appear!
And present gratitude?Insures the future's good,?And for the things I see?I trust the things to be;
That in the paths untrod,?And the long days of God,?My feet shall still be led,?My heart be comforted.
O living friends who love me!?O dear ones gone above me!?Careless of other fame,?I leave to you my name.
Hide it from idle praises,?Save it from evil phrases?Why, when dear lips that spake it?Are dumb, should strangers wake it?
Let the thick curtain fall;?I better know than all?How little I have gained,?How vast the unattained.
Not by the page word-painted?Let life be banned or sainted?Deeper than written scroll?The colors of the soul.
Sweeter than any sung?My songs that found no tongue;?Nobler than any fact?My wish that failed of act.
Others shall sing the song,?Others shall right the wrong,--?Finish what I begin,?And all I fail of win.
What matter, I or they??Mine or another's day,?So the right word be said?And life the sweeter made?
Hail to the coming singers?Hail to the brave light-bringers!?Forward I reach and share?All that they sing and dare.
The airs of heaven blow o'er me;?A glory shines before me?Of what mankind shall be,--?Pure, generous, brave, and free.
A dream of man and woman?Diviner but still human,?Solving the riddle old,?Shaping the Age of Gold.
The love of God and neighbor;?An equal-handed labor;?The richer life, where beauty?Walks hand in hand with duty.
Ring, bells in unreared steeples,?The joy of unborn peoples!?Sound, trumpets far off blown,?Your triumph is my own!
Parcel and part of all,?I keep the festival,?Fore-reach the good to be,?And share the victory.
I feel the earth move sunward,?I join the great march onward,?And take, by faith, while living,?My freehold of thanksgiving.?1870.
IN SCHOOL-DAYS.
Still sits the school-house by the road,?A ragged beggar sleeping;?Around it still the sumachs grow,?And blackberry-vines are creeping.
Within, the master's desk is seen,?Deep scarred by raps official;?The warping floor, the battered seats,?The jack-knife's carved initial;
The charcoal frescos on its wall;?Its door's worn sill, betraying?The feet that, creeping slow to school,?Went storming out to playing!
Long years ago a winter sun?Shone over it at setting;?Lit up its western window-panes,?And low eaves' icy fretting.
It touched the tangled golden curls,?And brown eyes full of grieving,?Of one who still her steps delayed?When all the school were leaving.
For near her stood the little boy?Her childish favor singled:?His cap pulled low upon a face?Where pride and shame were mingled.
Pushing with restless feet the snow?To right and left, he lingered;--?As restlessly her tiny hands?The blue-checked apron fingered.
He saw her lift her eyes; he felt?The soft hand's light caressing,?And heard the tremble of her voice,?As if a fault confessing.
"I 'm sorry that I spelt the word?I hate to go above you,?Because,"--the brown eyes lower fell,--?"Because you see, I love you!"
Still memory to a gray-haired man?That sweet child-face is showing.?Dear girl! the grasses on her grave?Have forty years been growing!
He lives to learn, in life's hard school,?How few who pass above him?Lament their triumph and his loss,?Like her,--because they love him.
MY BIRTHDAY.
Beneath the moonlight and the snow?Lies dead my latest year;?The winter winds are wailing low?Its dirges in my ear.
I grieve not with the moaning wind?As if a loss befell;?Before me, even as behind,?God is, and all is well!
His light shines on me from above,?His low voice speaks within,--?The patience of immortal love?Outwearying mortal sin.
Not mindless of the growing years?Of care and loss and pain,?My eyes are wet with thankful tears?For blessings which remain.
If dim the gold of life has grown,?I will not count it dross,?Nor turn from treasures still my own?To sigh for lack and loss.
The years no charm from Nature take;?As sweet her voices call,?As beautiful her mornings break,?As fair her evenings fall.
Love watches o'er my quiet ways,?Kind voices speak my name,?And lips that find it hard to praise?Are slow, at least, to blame.
How softly ebb the tides of will!?How fields, once lost or won,?Now lie behind me green and still?Beneath a level sun.
How hushed the hiss of party hate,?The clamor of the throng!?How old, harsh voices of debate?Flow into rhythmic song!
Methinks the spirit's temper grows?Too soft in this still air;?Somewhat the restful heart foregoes?Of needed watch and prayer.
The bark by tempest vainly tossed?May founder in the calm,?And he who braved the polar frost?Faint by