Days and Dreams Part 4

PART III.

1.

Now rests the season in forgetfulness, Careless in beauty of maturity; The ripened roses 'round brown temples, she Fulfils completion in a dreamy guess: Now Time grants night the more and day the less; The gray decides; and brown Dim golds and reds in dulling greens express Themselves and broaden as the year goes down.

Sadder the croft where, thrusting gray and high Their b.a.l.l.s of seeds, the h.o.a.ry onions die, Where, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie: Deeper each wilderness; Sadder the blue of hills that lounge along The lonesome west; sadder the song Of the wild red-bird in the leaf.a.ge yellow, Deeper and dreamier, aye!

Than woods or waters, leans the languid sky Above lone orchards where the cider-press Drips and the russets mellow.

Nature grows liberal; under woodland leaves The beech-nuts' burs their little pockets poke, Plump with the copper of the nuts that choke; Above our bristling way the spider weaves A glittering web for which the Dawn designs Thrice twenty rows of sparkles. By the oak, That rolls old roots in many gnarly lines, The acorn thimble, smoothly broke, s.h.i.+nes by its saucer. On sonorous pines The far wind organs; but the forest here To no weak breeze hath woke; Far off the wind, but crumbling near and near,-- Each tingling twig expectant, and the gray Surmise of heaven pilots it the way, Rippling the leafy spines, Until the wildwood, one exultant sway, Booms, and the sunlight, arrowing through it, s.h.i.+nes Visible applause you hear.

How glows the garden! though the white mists keep The vagabond in flowers reminded of Decay that comes to slay in open love, When the full moon hangs cold and night is deep, Unheeding such their cardinal colors leap Gay in the crescent of the blade of death; s.p.a.ced innocents in swaths he weeps to reap, Waiting his scythe a breath, To gravely lay them dead with one last sweep.-- Long, long admire Their splendors manifold:-- The scarlet salvia showered with spurts of fire; Cascading lattices, dark vines that creep, Nightshade and cypress; there the marigold Burning--a shred of orange sunset caught And elfed in petals that eve's goblins brought From elfland; there, predominant red, The dahlia lifts its head By the white balsams' red-bruised horns of honey, In humming s.p.a.ces sunny.

The crickets singing dirges noon and night For morn-born flowers, at dusk already dead, For dusk-dead flowers weep; While tired Summer white, Where yonder aster whispering odor rocks,-- The withered poppies knotted in her locks,-- Sighs, 'mong her sleepy hollyhocks asleep.

2.

The hips were reddening on the rose, The haws hung slips of fire; We went the woodland way that goes Up hills of branch and briar.

The hooked thorn held her gown and seemed Imploring her be staying The sunlight of herself that beamed Beside it gently swaying.

Low bent the golden saxifrage; Its yellow bells like bangles The foxglove fluttered. Like a page-- From out the rail-fence angles-- With crimson plume the sumach, hosed In Lincoln green, attended My lady of the elder, posed In blue-black jewels splendid.

And as we mounted up the hill The rocky path that stumbled Spread smooth; and all the day was still And odorous with umbled Tops of wild-carrots drying gray; And there, soft-sunned before us, An orchard dwindling away With dappled boughs bent o'er us.

An orchard where the pippin fell Worm-bitten, bruised, and dusty; And hornet-stung, each like a bell, The Bartlett ripened rusty; The smell of tawny peach and plum, That offered luscious yellow; Of wasp and bee the hidden hum, Made all the warm air mellow.

And on we went where many-hued Hung wild the morning-glory, Their blue balloons in shadows, dewed With frost-white dew-drops h.o.a.ry; In bush and burgra.s.s far away Beneath us stretched the valley, Cleft by one creek that laughed with day And babbled musically.

The brown, the bronze, the gray, the red Of weed and briar ran riot Flush to dark woodland walls that led To nooks of whispering quiet.

Long, feathering bursts of golden-rod Ran golden woolly patches-- Bloom-sunsets of the withered sod The dying summer catches.

Then o'er the hills, loose-tumbling rolled-- O'erleaping expectation-- The sunset, flaming marigold, A system's conflagration: And homeward turning, she and I Went as one self in being-- G.o.d met us in the earth and sky And Love had purged our seeing.

3.

Say, my dear, O my dear, These are the eves for speaking; There is no wight will work us spite Beneath the sunset's streaking.

Yes, my dear, O my dear, These are the eves for telling; To walk together in starry weather Ere springs o' the moon are welling.

O my dear, yes, my dear, These are the dusks for staying; When twilight dreams of night who seems Among long-purples praying.

"No, my dear!"--"Yes, my dear!"

These are the nights to kiss it Times twice-a-twenty: they grow a-plenty On lips that will not miss it.

4.

To dream where silence sleeps A sorrow's sleep that sighs; Where all heaven's azure peeps Blue from one wildflower's eyes Where, in reflecting deeps,-- Of cloudier woods and skies,-- Another gray world lies.

Divining G.o.d from things Humble as weeds and bees; From songs the free bird sings Learn all are vain but these; In light-delighted springs, Wise, star-familiar trees, Seek love's philosophies.

5.

Here where the days are dimmest, Each old, big-hearted tree Gives bounteous sympathy; Here where dead nights sit grimmest In druid company; Here where the days are dimmest.

Leaves of my lone communion, Leaves; and the listening sigh Of silence wanders by; While on my soul the union Is--of the wood and sky-- Leaves of my lone communion.

And eyes with tears are aching, While life waits wistfully For love that may not be: In visions vain of waking Lives all it can not see.-- And eyes with tears are aching, And eyes with tears are aching.

6.

And here alone I sit and see it so.

A vale of willows swelling into k.n.o.bs, A bulwark eastward. Sloping low Westward the scooping waters flow Under a rocky culvert's arch that throbs With clanging wheels of transient trains that go Screaming to north and south.

Here all the weary waters, stagnant stayed, Sleep at the culvert's mouth; The current's hungry hiccup still afraid, Haply, that I should never know The secret 'neath the striate sc.u.m o' the stream The devil and the dream, I, dropping gravels so the echo sob Mocking and thin as music of a shade In shades that wring from rocks a hollow woe, Complaining phantoms of faint whispers rob.

There, up the valley where the lank gra.s.s leaps Blades each a crooked kris, The currents strike or miss Dream melodies: No wide-belled mallow sleeps Monandrous flowers oval as a kiss; No mandrake curling convolutions up Loops heavy blossoms, each a conical cup That swoons moon-nectar and a serpent's hiss; No tiger-lily, where the crayfish play, Mirrors a savage face, a copper hue Streaked with a crimson dew; No dragon-fly in endless error keeps Sewing the pale-gold gown of day With tangled st.i.tches of a burning blue,-- Whose brilliant body but a needle is, An azurn and incarnate ray:-- But here, where haunted with the shade, The dull stream stales and dies, Are beauties none or few, Such sinister and new; And one at widest noon-gaze shrinks afraid Beneath the timid skies; So, if you ask me why I answer this:--

You know not; only where the kildees wade There in the foamy sc.u.m, There where the wet rocks ail,-- Low rocks to which the water-reptiles come, Basking pied bodies in the brindled shade,-- Dim as a bubble's prism on the grail Below, an angled sparkle rayed, While lights and shadows aid From breeze-blown clouds that lounge at sunny loss, Deep down, a sense of wavy features quail The heart; with lips that writhe and fade And clench; tough, rooty limbs that twist and cross, And flabby hair of smoky moss.

A brimstone sunset. And at night The twinkling flies in will-o'-the-wisp dance wheel Through copse and open, all a gnomish green.

I hear the water, and the wave is white There where the boulder plants a keel, And each taunt ripple 's sheen.-- Where instant insects dot The dark with spurts of sulphur--bright, Beneath the hazy height, No bitter-almond trees make wan the night, Building bloom ridges of a ghostly l.u.s.tre, But white-tops tossing cl.u.s.ter over cl.u.s.ter: Huge-seen within that twilight spot-- As if a hill-born giant, half asleep, Had dropped his night-cap while he drove his sheep Foldward through fallow browns And foxy grays,--a something crowns The knoll--is it the odorous peak Of one June-savory timothy stack?

Now, one dead ash behind, A weak moon shows a withered cheek Of Quaker quiet, wasted o'er the vines'

Appentice ruins roofing pillared pines: Beyond these, back and back, An oak-wood stretches black-- And here the whining were-wolves of the wind Snuff snarling: but their eyes are blind, Although their fangs are fierce; And though they never pierce Beyond the bad, bedevilled woodland streak, I hear them, yes, I hear A padding o' footsteps near, A prowling pant in ear And can not fly!--yes!--no!-- What horror holds me?--That uncoiling slow, Sure, mastering chimera there, Hooping firm unseen feelers 'round my neck A binding, bruising coil ...

The waters burn and boil; The fire-flies the dappled darkness fleck With impish dabs of blazing wizard's oil ...

Deep, deep into the black eye of the beck I stare, magnetic fixed, and little reck If all the writhing shadow slips, Dripping around me, to the eyes and hips, Where grinning murder leers with lupine lips.

7.

What can it mean for me? what have I done to her?

I in our freedom of love as a sun to her; She to our liberty G.o.ddess and slumberless Moon of the stars s.h.i.+ning silver and numberless: Who on my life, that was th.o.r.n.y and showery, Came--and made dewyness; smiled--and made flowery; Mine! the affinitized one of humanity: Mine! the elected of soul over vanity-- What have I done to her, what have I done!

What can it mean for me? what have I said to her?

I, who have idolized, wors.h.i.+pped, and pled to her; Sung for her, laughed for her, sorrowed and sighed for her, Lived for her, hated and gladly had died for her!

See; she has written me thus! she has written me-- Sooner would dagger or serpent had smitten me!

Would they had shrivelled or ever they'd read of it!

Eyes, that are wide to the bitterest dread of it-- What have I said to her, what have I said!

What shall I make of it, I, who am trembling Fearful of loss?--Oh, enamored, dissembling Flame!--of the candle that burning, but guttering, Flatters the moth that comes circling and fluttering Out of the summer night; trusting, importunate, Quitting cool flowers for this--O unfortunate!-- Such has she been to me making me such to her, Slaying me, saying I never was much to her-- What shall I make of it, what can I make!

Love, in thy everglades, moaning and motionless Look, I have fallen; the evil is potionless: I, with no thought but the heavens that lock us in, Set naked feet 'mid the cottonmouth, moccasin Under wild-roses, the Cherokee, eying me:-- In the sweet blue with the egrets that, flying me, Loosened like blooms from magnolias, rose slenderly White and pale pink; where the mocking-bird tenderly Sang, making vistas of mosses melodious, Wandered unheeding my steps in the odious Slime that was venom; I followed the fiery Violet curve of thy star falling wiry-- So was I lost in night, thus am undone!...

Have I not told to her--living alone for her-- Purposed unfoldments of love I had sown for her Here in the soil of my soul? their variety Endless; and ever she answered with piety.-- See! it has come to this ... all the tale's suavity At the ninth chapter grows stupid with gravity; Duller than death all our beautiful history-- Close it!--the _finis_ is more than a mystery.-- Yes, I will tell her this; yes, I will tell.