Rose and Roof-Tree | Page 3

a voice still left behind
In each heavy-hearted tree,

Charged with tearful memory
Of the vanished rain:
From their leafy
lashes wet
Drip the dews of fresh regret
For the lover that's gone!

All else is still.
But the stars are listening;
And low o'er the wooded
hill
Hangs, upon listless wing
Outspread, a shape of damp, blue
cloud,
Watching, like a bird of evil
That knows no mercy nor
reprieval,
The slow and silent death of the pallid moon.
IV.
But soon, returning duly,
Dawn whitens the wet hill-tops bluely.
To
her vision pure and cold
The night's wild tale is told
On the
glistening leaf, in the mid-road pool,
The garden mold turned dark
and cool,
And the meadow's trampled acres.
But hark, how fresh
the song of the winged music-makers!
For now the moanings bitter,

Left by the rain, make harmony
With the swallow's matin-twitter,

And the robin's note, like the wind's in a tree:
The infant morning
breathes sweet breath,
And with it is blent
The wistful, wild, moist
scent
Of the grass in the marsh which the sea nourisheth:
And
behold!
The last reluctant drop of the storm,
Wrung from the roof,
is smitten warm
And turned to gold;
For in its veins doth run
The
very blood of the bold, unsullied sun!
THE SONG-SPARROW.
Glimmers gray the leafless thicket
Close beside my garden gate,

Where, so light, from post to picket
Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate;

Who, with meekly folded wing,
Comes to sun himself and sing.
It was there, perhaps, last year,
That his little house he built;
For he
seems to perk and peer,
And to twitter, too, and tilt
The bare
branches in between,
With a fond, familiar mien.
Once, I know, there was a nest,
Held there by the sideward thrust


Of those twigs that touch his breast;
Though 'tis gone now. Some
rude gust
Caught it, over-full of snow,--
Bent the bush,--and robbed
it so
Thus our highest holds are lost,
By the ruthless winter's wind,

When, with swift-dismantling frost,
The green woods we dwelt in,
thinn'd
Of their leafage, grow too cold
For frail hopes of summer's
mold.
But if we, with spring-days mellow,
Wake to woeful wrecks of
change,
And the sparrow's ritornello
Scaling still its old sweet range;

Can we do a better thing
Than, with him, still build and sing?
Oh, my sparrow, thou dost breed
Thought in me beyond all telling;

Shootest through me sunlight, seed,
And fruitful blessing, with that
welling
Ripple of ecstatic rest,
Gurgling ever from thy breast!
And thy breezy carol spurs
Vital motion in my blood,
Such as in the
sapwood stirs,
Swells and shapes the pointed bud
Of the lilac; and besets
The hollows thick with violets.
Yet I know not any charm
That can make the fleeting time
Of thy
sylvan, faint alarm
Suit itself to human rhyme:
And my yearning
rhythmic word,
Does thee grievous wrong, dear bird.
So, however thou hast wrought
This wild joy on heart and brain,
It
is better left untaught.
Take thou up the song again:
There is
nothing sad afloat
On the tide that swells thy throat!
FAIRHAVEN BAY.
I push on through the shaggy wood,
I round the hill: 't is here it stood;

And there, beyond the crumbled walls,
The shining Concord
slowly crawls,

Yet seems to make a passing stay,
And gently spreads its lilied bay,

Curbed by this green and reedy shore,
Up toward the ancient
homestead's door.
But dumbly sits the shattered house,
And makes no answer: man and
mouse
Long since forsook it, and decay
Chokes its deep heart with
ashes gray.
On what was once a garden-ground
Dull red-bloomed sorrels now
abound;
And boldly whistles the shy quail
Within the vacant
pasture's pale.
Ah, strange and savage, where he shines,
The sun seems staring
through those pines
That once the vanished home could bless
With
intimate, sweet loneliness.
The ignorant, elastic sod
The feet of them that daily trod
Its roods
hath utterly forgot:
The very fire-place knows them not.
For, in the weedy cellar, thick
The ruined chimney's mass of brick

Lies strown. Wide heaven, with such an ease
Dost thou, too, lose the
thought of these?
Yet I, although I know not who
Lived here, in years that voiceless
grew
Ere I was born,--and never can,--
Am moved, because I am a
man.
Oh glorious gift of brotherhood!
Oh sweet elixir in the blood,
That
makes us live with those long dead,
Or hope for those that shall be
bred
Hereafter! No regret can rob
My heart of this delicious throb;
No
thought of fortunes haply wrecked,
Nor pang for nature's wild
neglect.
And, though the hearth be cracked and cold,
Though ruin all the place

enfold,
These ashes that have lost their name
Shall warm my life
with lasting flame!
CHANT FOR AUTUMN.
Veiled in visionary haze,
Behold, the ethereal autumn days
Draw
near again!
In broad array,
With a low, laborious hum
These
ministers of plenty come,
That seem to linger, while they steal away.
O strange, sweet charm
Of peaceful pain,
When yonder mountain's
bended arm
Seems wafting o'er the harvest-plain
A message to the
heart that grieves,
And round us, here, a sad-hued rain
Of leaves
that loosen without number
Showering falls in yellow, umber,
Red,
or russet, 'thwart the stream!
Now pale Sorrow shall encumber
All
too soon these lands, I deem;
Yet who at heart believes
The autumn, a false friend,
Can bring us
fatal harm?
Ah, mist-hung avenues in dream
Not more uncertainly
extend
Than the season that