May-Day Part 6

MY GARDEN.

If I could put my woods in song, And tell what's there enjoyed, All men would to my gardens throng, And leave the cities void.

In my plot no tulips blow,-- Snow-loving pines and oaks instead; And rank the savage maples grow From spring's faint flush to autumn red.

My garden is a forest ledge Which older forests bound; The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge, Then plunge to depths profound.

Here once the Deluge ploughed, Laid the terraces, one by one; Ebbing later whence it flowed, They bleach and dry in the sun.

The sowers made haste to depart,-- The wind and the birds which sowed it; Not for fame, nor by rules of art, Planted these, and tempests flowed it.

Waters that wash my garden side Play not in Nature's lawful web, They heed not moon or solar tide,-- Five years elapse from flood to ebb.

Hither hasted, in old time, Jove, And every G.o.d,--none did refuse; And be sure at last came Love, And after Love, the Muse.

Keen ears can catch a syllable, As if one spake to another, In the hemlocks tall, untameable, And what the whispering gra.s.ses smother.

AEolian harps in the pine Ring with the song of the Fates; Infant Bacchus in the vine,-- Far distant yet his chorus waits.

Cast thou copy in verse one chime Of the wood-bell's peal and cry, Write in a book the morning's prime, Or match with words that tender sky?

Wonderful verse of the G.o.ds, Of one import, of varied tone; They chant the bliss of their abodes To man imprisoned in his own.

Ever the words of the G.o.ds resound; But the porches of man's ear Seldom in this low life's round Are unsealed, that he may hear.

Wandering voices in the air, And murmurs in the wold, Speak what I cannot declare, Yet cannot all withhold.

When the shadow fell on the lake, The whirlwind in ripples wrote Air-bells of fortune that s.h.i.+ne and break, And omens above thought.

But the meanings cleave to the lake, Cannot be carried in book or urn; Go thy ways now, come later back, On waves and hedges still they burn.

These the fates of men forecast, Of better men than live to-day; If who can read them comes at last, He will spell in the sculpture, 'Stay!'

THE t.i.tMOUSE.

You shall not be overbold When you deal with arctic cold, As late I found my lukewarm blood Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood.

How should I fight? my foeman fine Has million arms to one of mine: East, west, for aid I looked in vain, East, west, north, south, are his domain.

Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home; Must borrow his winds who there would come.

Up and away for life! be fleet!-- The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, Curdles the blood to the marble bones, Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, And hems in life with narrowing fence.

Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep, The punctual stars will vigil keep, Embalmed by purifying cold, The winds shall sing their dead-march old, The snow is no ign.o.ble shroud, The moon thy mourner, and the cloud.

Softly,--but this way fate was pointing, 'T was coming fast to such anointing, When piped a tiny voice hard by, Gay and polite a cheerful cry, _Chic-chicadeedee_! saucy note Out of sound heart and merry throat, As if it said, 'Good day, good sir!

Fine afternoon, old pa.s.senger!

Happy to meet you in these places, Where January brings few faces.'

This poet, though he live apart, Moved by his hospitable heart, Sped, when I pa.s.sed his sylvan fort, To do the honours of his court, As fits a feathered lord of land; Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand, Hopped on the bough, then, darting low, Prints his small impress on the snow, Shows feats of his gymnastic play, Head downward, clinging to the spray.

Here was this atom in full breath, Hurling defiance at vast death; This sc.r.a.p of valour just for play Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray, As if to shame my weak behaviour; I greeted loud my little saviour, 'You pet! what dost here? and what for?

In these woods, thy small Labrador, At this pinch, wee San Salvador!

What fire burns in that little chest So frolic, stout, and self-possest?

Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine; Ashes and jet all hues outs.h.i.+ne.

Why are not diamonds black and gray, To ape thy dare-devil array?

And I affirm, the s.p.a.cious North Exists to draw thy virtue forth.

I think no virtue goes with size; The reason of all cowardice Is, that men are overgrown, And, to be valiant, must come down To the t.i.tmouse dimension.'

'T is good-will makes intelligence, And I began to catch the sense Of my bird's song: 'Live out of doors, In the great woods, on prairie floors.

I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea, I too have a hole in a hollow tree; And I like less when Summer beats With stifling beams on these retreats, Than noontide twilights which snow makes With tempest of the blinding flakes.

For well the soul, if stout within, Can arm impregnably the skin; And polar frost my frame defied, Made of the air that blows outside.'

With glad remembrance of my debt, I homeward turn; farewell, my pet!

When here again thy pilgrim comes, He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs.

Doubt not, so long as earth has bread, Thou first and foremost shalt be fed; The Providence that is most large Takes hearts like thine in special charge, Helps who for their own need are strong, And the sky dotes on cheerful song.

Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant O'er all that ma.s.s and minster vaunt; For men mis-hear thy call in spring, As 't would accost some frivolous wing; Crying out of the hazel copse, _Phe-be_!

And, in winter, _Chic-a-dee-dee_!

I think old Caesar must have heard In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, And, echoed in some frosty wold, Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold.

And I will write our annals new, And thank thee for a better clew, I, who dreamed not when I came here To find the antidote of fear, Now hear thee say in Roman key, _Paean! Veni, vidi, vici_.

SEA-Sh.o.r.e.

I heard or seemed to hear the chiding Sea Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come?

Am I not always here, thy summer home?

Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve?

My breath thy healthful climate in the heats, My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath?

Was ever building like my terraces?

Was ever couch magnificent as mine?

Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn A little hut suffices like a town.

I make your sculptured architecture vain, Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home, And carve the coastwise mountain into caves.

Lo! here is Rome, and Nineveh, and Thebes, Karnak, and Pyramid, and Giant's Stairs, Half piled or prostrate; and my newest slab Older than all thy race.

Behold the Sea, The opaline, the plentiful and strong, Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July; Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds, Purger of earth, and medicine of men; Creating a sweet climate by my breath, Was.h.i.+ng out harms and griefs from memory, And, in my mathematic ebb and flow, Giving a hint of that which changes not.

Rich are the sea-G.o.ds:--who gives gifts but they?

They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls: They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise.

For every wave is wealth to Daedalus, Wealth to the cunning artist who can work This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves!

A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?

I with my hammer pounding evermore The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust, Strewing my bed, and, in another age, Rebuild a continent of better men.

Then I unbar the doors: my paths lead out The exodus of nations: I disperse Men to all sh.o.r.es that front the h.o.a.ry main.

I too have arts and sorceries; Illusion dwells forever with the wave.