Rose and Roof-Tree | Page 4

receives
A summer's latest gleam!
But the days of death advance:
They tarry not, nor turn!
I will
gather the ashes of summer
In my heart, as an urn.
Oh draw thou nearer,
Thou
Spirit of the distant height,
Whither
now that slender flight
Of swallows, winging, guides my sight!
The hill cloth seem to me
A fading memory
Of long delight,
And in its distant blue
Half hideth from my view

This shrinking season that must now retire;
And so shall hold it,
hopeful, a desire
And knowledge old as night and always new.

Draw nigher! And, with bended brow,
I will be thy reverer

Through
the long winter's term!

So, when the snows hold firm,
And the brook is dumb;
When sharp winds come
To flay the
hill-tops bleak,
And whistle down the creek;
While the unhappy
worm
Crawls deeper down into the ground,
To 'scape Frost's jailer
on his round;
Thy form to me shall speak
From the wide valley's bound,
Recall
the waving of the last bird's wing,
And help me hope for spring.
BEFORE THE SNOW.
Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare
Shatters the windy
rain. A thousand leaves,
Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air,

Flutter away from the old forest's eaves.
Autumn is gone: as yonder silent rill,
Slow eddying o'er thick
leaf-heaps lately shed,
My spirit, as I walk, moves awed and still,

By thronging fancies wild and wistful led.
Autumn is gone: alas, how long ago
The grapes were plucked, and
garnered was the grain!
How soon death settles on us, and the snow

Wraps with its white alike our graves, our gain!
Yea, autumn's gone! Yet it robs not my mood
Of that which makes
moods dear,--some shoot of spring
Still sweet within me; or thoughts
of yonder wood
We walked in,--memory's rare environing.
And, though they die, the seasons only take
A ruined substance. All
that's best remains
In the essential vision that can make
One light
for life, love, death, their joys, their pains.
THE GHOSTS OF GROWTH.

Last night it snowed; and Nature fell asleep.
Forest and field lie
tranced in gracious dreams
Of growth, for ghosts of leaves long dead,
me-seems,
Hover about the boughs; and wild winds sweep
O'er
whitened fields full many a hoary heap
From the storm-harvest mown
by ice-bound streams!
With beauty of crushed clouds the cold earth
teems,
And winter a tranquil-seeming truce would keep.
But such ethereal slumber may not bide
The ascending sun's bright
scorn--not long, I fear;
And all its visions on the golden tide
Of
mid-noon gliding off, must disappear.
Fair dreams, farewell! So in
life's stir and pride
You fade, and leave the treasure of a tear!
THE LILY-POND.
Some fairy spirit with his wand,
I think, has hovered o'er the dell,

And spread this film upon the pond,
And touched it with this drowsy
spell.
For here the musing soul is merged
In moods no other scene can
bring,
And sweeter seems the air when scourged
With wandering
wild-bees' murmuring.
One ripple streaks the little lake,
Sharp purple-blue; the birches, thin

And silvery, crowd the edge, yet break
To let a straying sunbeam
in.
How came we through the yielding wood,
That day, to this
sweet-rustling shore?
Oh, there together while we stood,
A butterfly
was wafted o'er,
In sleepy light; and even now
His glimmering beauty doth return

Upon me, when the soft winds blow,
And lilies toward the sunlight
yearn.
The yielding wood? And yet 't was both
To yield unto our happy

march;
Doubtful it seemed, at times, if both
Could pass its green,
elastic arch.
Yet there, at last, upon the marge
We found ourselves, and there,
behold,
In hosts the lilies, white and large,
Lay close, with hearts of
downy gold!
Deep in the weedy waters spread
The rootlets of the placid bloom:

So sprung my love's flower, that was bred
In deep, still waters of
heart's-gloom.
So sprung; and so that morn was nursed
To live in light, and on the
pool
Wherein its roots were deep immersed
Burst into beauty broad
and cool.
Few words were said; a moment passed;
I know not how it
came--that awe
And ardor of a glance that cast
Our love in
universal law!
But all at once a bird sang loud,
From dead twigs of the gleamy beech;

His notes dropped dewy, as out of a cloud,
A blessing on our
married speech.
Ah, Love! how fresh and rare, even now,
That moment and that mood
return
Upon me, when the soft winds blow,
And lilies toward the
sunlight yearn!
PART SECOND.
FIRST GLANCE.
A budding mouth and warm blue eyes;
A laughing face;--and
laughing hair,
So ruddy does it rise
From off that forehead fair;

Frank fervor in whate'er she said,
And a shy grace when she was still;
A bright, elastic tread;
Enthusiastic will;
These wrought the magic of a maid
As sweet and sad as the sun in
spring,
Joyous, yet half-afraid
Her joyousness to sing.
What weighs the unworthiness of earth
When beauty such as this
finds birth?
Rare maid, to look on thee
Gives all things harmony!
"THE SUNSHINE OF THINE EYES."
The sunshine of thine eyes,
(Oh still, celestial beam!)
Whatever it
touches it fills
With the life of its lambent gleam.
The sunshine of thine eyes,
Oh let it fall on me!
Though I be but a