Songs Out of Doors | Page 9

they called their strength,
Till with an angry,
broken roar,
Like billows on an unseen shore,
Their fury burst at
length.

I heard through the night
The rush and the clamour;
The pulse of
the fight
Like blows of Thor's hammer;
The pattering flight
Of the
leaves, and the anguished
Moan of the forest vanquished.
At daybreak came a gusty song:
"Shout! the winds are strong.
The
little people of the leaves are fled.
Shout! The Autumn is dead!"
III
The storm is ended! The impartial sun
Laughs down upon the battle
lost and won,
And crowns the triumph of the cloudy host
In rolling
lines retreating to the coast.
But we, fond lovers of the woodland shade,
And grateful friends of
every fallen leaf,
Forget the glories of the cloud-parade,
And walk
the ruined woods in quiet grief.
For ever so our thoughtful hearts repeat
On fields of triumph dirges
of defeat;
And still we turn on gala-days to tread
Among the
rustling memories of the dead.
1874.
THREE ALPINE SONNETS
I
THE GLACIER
At dawn in silence moves the mighty stream,
The silver-crested
waves no murmur make;
But far away the avalanches wake
The
rumbling echoes, dull as in a dream;
Their momentary thunders,
dying, seem
To fall into the stillness, flake by flake,
And leave the
hollow air with naught to break
The frozen spell of solitude supreme.
At noon unnumbered rills begin to spring
Beneath the burning sun,

and all the walls
Of all the ocean-blue crevasses ring
With liquid
lyrics of their waterfalls;
As if a poet's heart had felt the glow
Of
sovereign love, and song began to flow.
Zermatt, 1872.
II
THE SNOW-FIELD
White Death had laid his pall upon the plain,
And crowned the
mountain-peaks like monarchs
dead;
The vault of heaven was glaring overhead
With pitiless light
that filled my eyes with pain;
And while I vainly longed, and looked
in vain
For sign or trace of life, my spirit said,
"Shall any living
thing that dares to tread
This royal lair of Death escape again?"
But even then I saw before my feet
A line of pointed footprints in the
snow:
Some roving chamois, but an hour ago,
Had passed this way
along his journey fleet,
And left a message from a friend unknown

To cheer my pilgrim-heart, no more alone.
Zermatt, 1872.
III
MOVING BELLS
I love the hour that comes, with dusky hair
And dewy feet, along the
Alpine dells,
To lead the cattle forth. A thousand bells
Go chiming
after her across the fair
And flowery uplands, while the rosy flare

Of sunset on the snowy mountain dwells,
And valleys darken, and the
drowsy spells
Of peace are woven through the purple air.
Dear is the magic of this hour: she seems
To walk before the dark by

falling rills,
And lend a sweeter song to hidden streams;
She opens
all the doors of night, and fills
With moving bells the music of my
dreams,
That wander far among the sleeping hills.
Gstaad, August, 1909.
A SNOW-SONG
Does the snow fall at sea?
Yes, when the north winds blow,
When
the wild clouds fly low,
Out of each gloomy wing,
Silently
glimmering,
Over the stormy sea
Falleth the snow.
Does the snow hide the sea?
Nay, on the tossing plains
Never a
flake remains;
Drift never resteth there;
Vanishing everywhere,

Into the hungry sea
Falleth the snow.
What means the snow at sea?
Whirled in the veering blast,
Thickly
the flakes drive past;
Each like a childish ghost
Wavers, and then is
lost;
In the forgetful sea
Fadeth the snow.
1875.
ROSLIN AND HAWTHORNDEN
Fair Roslin Chapel, how divine
The art that reared thy costly shrine!

Thy carven columns must have grown
By magic, like a dream in
stone.
Yet not within thy storied wall
Would I in adoration fall,
So gladly
as within the glen
That leads to lovely Hawthornden.
A long-drawn aisle, with roof of green
And vine-clad pillars, while
between,
The Esk runs murmuring on its way,
In living music night
and day.
Within the temple of this wood
The martyrs of the covenant stood,


And rolled the psalm, and poured the prayer,
From Nature's solemn
altar-stair.
Edinburgh, 1877.
THE HEAVENLY HILLS OF HOLLAND
The heavenly hills of Holland,--
How wondrously they rise
Above
the smooth green pastures
Into the azure skies!
With blue and
purple hollows,
With peaks of dazzling snow,
Along the far horizon

The clouds are marching slow.
No mortal foot has trodden
The summits of that range,
Nor walked
those mystic valleys
Whose colours ever change;
Yet we possess
their beauty,
And visit them in dreams,
While ruddy gold of sunset

From cliff and canyon gleams.
In days of cloudless weather
They melt into the light;
When fog and
mist surround us
They're hidden from our sight;
But when returns a
season
Clear shining after rain,
While the northwest wind is
blowing,
We see the hills again.
The old Dutch painters loved them,
Their pictures show them fair,--

Old Hobbema and Ruysdael,
Van Goyen and Vermeer.
Above
the level landscape,
Rich polders, long-armed mills,
Canals and
ancient cities,--
Float Holland's heavenly hills.
The Hague, November, 1916.
FLOOD-TIDE OF FLOWERS
IN HOLLAND
The laggard winter ebbed so slow
With freezing rain and melting
snow,
It seemed as if the earth would stay
Forever where the tide
was low,
In sodden green and watery gray.

But now from depths beyond our sight,
The tide is turning in the
night,
And floods of colour long concealed
Come silent rising