Blooms of the Berry Part 8

THE HEART OF SPRING.

I.

Whiten, O whiten, ye clouds of fleece!

Whiten like lilies floating above, Blown wild about like a flock of white geese!

But never, O never; so cease! so cease!

Never as white as the throat of my love!

II.

Blue-black night on the mountain peaks, Blacker the locks of my maiden love!

Silvery star 'mid the evening streaks Over the torrent that flashes and breaks, Brighter the eyes of my laughing love!

III.

Horn of a new moon golden 'mid gold, Broken, fluted in the tarn's close skies; Shattered and beaten, wave-like and cold, Crisper my love's locks fold on fold, Cooler and brighter where dreaming she lies!

IV.

Silvery star o'er the precipice snow, Mist in the vale where the rivulet sings, Dropping from ledge to ledge below, Where we stood in the roseate glow, Softer the voice of her whisperings!

V.

Sound o' May winds in the blossoming trees, Sweeter the breeze my love's breath brings!

Song of wild birds on the morning breeze, Song o' wild birds and murmur o' wild bees, Sweeter my love's voice when she sings!

VI.

To the star of dawning bathed with dew, Blow, moony Sylph, your bugle of gold!

Blow thro' the hyaline over the blue, Blow from the sunset the morning lands thro', Let the star of love of our love be told!

THE OLD HOUSE BY THE MERE.

Five rotten gables look upon Wan rotting roses and rank weeds, Old iron gates on posts of stone, Dim dingles where the vermin breeds.

Five rotten gables black appear Above bleak yews and cedars sad, And thence they see the sleepy mere In lazy lilies clad.

At morn the slender dragon-fly, A burnished ray of light, darts past; The knightly bee comes charging by Winding a surly blast.

At noon amid the fervid leaves The quarreling insects gossip hot, And thro' the gra.s.s the spider weaves A weft with silver shot.

At eve the hermit cricket rears His vesper song in shrillful shrieks; The bat a blund'ring voyage steers Beneath the sunset's streaks.

The slimy worm gnaws at the bud, The Katydid talks dreamily; The sullen owl in monkish hood Chants in the old beech tree.

At night the blist'ring dew comes down And lies as white as autumn frost Upon the green, upon the brown, You'd deem each bush a ghost.

The crescent moon with golden prow Plows thro' the frothy cloud and 's gone; A large blue star comes out to glow Above the house alone.

The oozy lilies lie asleep On glist'ring beds of welt'ring leaves; The starlight through the trees doth peep, And fairy garments weaves.

And in the mere, all lily fair, A maiden's corpse floats evermore, Naked, and in her raven hair Wrapped o'er and o'er.

And when the clock of yon old town Peals midnight o'er the fenny heath, In haunted chambers up and down Marches the pomp of Death: And stiff, stiff silks make rustlings, Sweep sable satins murmuringly; And then a voice so sweetly sings An olden melody.

And foam-white creatures flit and dance Along the dusty galleries, With long, loose locks that strangely glance And demon-glaring eyes.

But in one chamber, when the moon Casts her cold silver wreath on wreath, Holds there proud state on ghastly throne The skeleton Death.

SUBSTRATUM.

Hear you r o music in the creaks Made by the sallow gra.s.shopper, Who in the hot weeds sharply breaks The mellow dryness with his cheer?

Or did you by the hearthstones hear The cricket's kind, shrill strain when frost Worked mysteries of silver near Upon the cas.e.m.e.nt's panes, and lost Without the gate-post seemed a sheeted ghost?

Or through the dank, dim Springtide's night Green minstrels of the marshlands tune Their hoa.r.s.e lyres in the pale twilight, Hailing the sickle of the moon From flag-thronged pools that gla.s.sed her lune?

Or in the Summer, dry and loud, The hard cicada whirr aboon His long lay in a poplar's cloud, When the thin heat rose wraith-like in a shroud?

The cloud that lids the naked moon, And smites the myriad leaves with night Of stormy lashes, livid strewn With veins of branched and splintered light; The fruitful glebe with blossoms white, The thistle's purple plume; the tears Pearling the matin buds' delight, Contain a something, it appears, 'Neath their real selves--a poetry that cheers.

Nor scoff at those who on the wold See fairies whirling in the s.h.i.+ne Of prodigal moons, whose lavish gold Paves wood-ways, forests wild with vine, When all the wilderness with wine Of tipsy dew is dazed; nor say Our G.o.d's restricted to confine His wonders solely to the day, That yields the abstract tangible to clay.

Ponder the entrance of the Morn When from her rubric forehead far s.h.i.+nes one clean star, and the dead tarn, The wooded river's red as war: Where arid splinters of the scar Lock horns above a blue abyss, How roses prank each icy bar, While piled aloft the mountains press, Fling dawn below from many a h.o.a.ry tress.

The jutting crags, all stubborn-veined With iron life, where eaglets scream In dizzy flocks, and cleave the stained Mist-rainbows of the mountain stream; Thus you will drink the thickest cream Of nature if you do not scan The bald external; and must deem A plan existent in a plan-- As life in thrifty trees or soul in man.

ALONG THE OHIO.

Athwart a sky of bra.s.s rich ribs of gold; A bullion bulk the wide Ohio lies; Beneath the sunset, billowing manifold, The purple hill-tops rise.

And lo! the crescent of a crystal moon, And great cloud-feathers flushed with crimson light Drifting above the pureness of her lune, Rent from the wings of night.

A crescent boat slips o'er the burnished stream; A silver wake, that broadens far behind, Follows in ripples, and the paddles gleam Against the evening wind.

So, in this solitude and evening hush, Again to me the Old Kentucky glooms Behold the red man lurking in yon bush In paint and eagle plumes.

And now the breaking of the brittle brush-- An altered forehead hirsute swells in view, And now comes stealing down the river's gush The dip of the canoe.