Shapes and Shadows

The Old Man Dreams

 
The blackened walnut in its spicy hull
Rots where it fell;
And, in the orchard, where the trees stand full,
The pear's ripe bell
Drops; and the log-house in the bramble lane,
From whose low door
Stretch yellowing acres of the corn and cane,
He sees once more.
 
 
The cat-bird sings upon its porch of pine;
And o'er its gate,
All slender-podded, twists the trumpet-vine,
A leafy weight;
And in the woodland, by the spring, mayhap,
With eyes of joy
Again he bends to set a rabbit-trap,
A brown-faced boy.
 
 
Then, whistling, through the underbrush he goes,
Out of the wood,
Where, with young cheeks, red as an Autumn rose,
Beneath her hood,
His sweetheart waits, her school-books on her arm;
And now it seems
Beside his chair he sees his wife's fair form —
The old man dreams.
 

Since Then

 
I found myself among the trees
What time the reapers ceased to reap;
And in the berry blooms the bees
Huddled wee heads and went to sleep,
 
 
Rocked by the silence and the breeze.
I saw the red fox leave his lair,
A shaggy shadow, on the knoll;
And, tunnelling his thoroughfare
 
 
Beneath the loam, I watched the mole —
Stealth's own self could not take more care.
I heard the death-moth tick and stir,
Slow-honeycombing through the bark;
 
 
I heard the crickets' drowsy chirr,
And one lone beetle burr the dark —
The sleeping woodland seemed to purr.
And then the moon rose; and a white
 
 
Low bough of blossoms – grown almost
Where, ere you died, 'twas our delight
To tryst, – dear heart! – I thought your ghost…
The wood is haunted since that night.
 

Comrades

 
Down through the woods, along the way
That fords the stream; by rock and tree,
Where in the bramble-bell the bee
Swings; and through twilights green and gray
The red-bird flashes suddenly,
My thoughts went wandering to-day.
 
 
I found the fields where, row on row,
The blackberries hang black with fruit;
Where, nesting at the elder's root,
The partridge whistles soft and low;
The fields, that billow to the foot
Of those old hills we used to know.
 
 
There lay the pond, still willow-bound,
On whose bright surface, when the hot
Noon burnt above, we chased the knot
Of water-spiders; while around
Our heads, like bits of rainbow, shot
The dragonflies without a sound.
 
 
The pond, above which evening bent
To gaze upon her rosy face;
Wherein the twinkling night would place
A vague, inverted firmament,
In which the green frogs tuned their bass,
And firefly sparkles came and went.
 
 
The oldtime woods we often ranged,
When we were playmates, you and I;
The oldtime fields, with boyhood's sky
Still blue above them! – Naught was changed!
Nothing! – Alas, then tell me why
Should we be? whom long years estranged.
 

Waiting

 
Come to the hills, the woods are green —
The heart is high whenLove is sweet—
There is a brook that flows between
Two mossy trees where we can meet,
Where we can meet and speak unseen.
 
 
I hear you laughing in the lane —
The heart is high whenLove is sweet—
The clover smells of sun and rain
And spreads a carpet for our feet,
Where we can sit and dream again.
 
 
Come to the woods, the dusk is here —
The heart is high whenLove is sweet—
A bird upon the branches near
Sets music to our hearts' glad beat,
Our hearts that beat with something dear.
 
 
I hear your step; the lane is passed; —
The heart is high whenLove is sweet—
The little stars come bright and fast,
Like happy eyes to see us greet,
To see us greet and kiss at last.
 

Contrasts

 
No eve of summer ever can attain
The gladness of that eve of late July,
When 'mid the roses, filled with musk and rain,
Against the wondrous topaz of the sky,
I met you, leaning on the pasture bars, —
While heaven and earth grew conscious of the stars.
 
 
No night of blackest winter can repeat
The bitterness of that December night,
When at your gate, gray-glittering with sleet,
Within the glimmering square of window-light,
We parted, – long you clung unto my arm, —
While heaven and earth surrendered to the storm.
 

In June

 
Deep in the West a berry-coloured bar
Of sunset gleams; against which one tall fir
Is outlined dark; above which – courier
Of dew and dreams – burns dusk's appointed star.
And flash on flash, as when the elves wage war
In Goblinland, the fireflies bombard
The stillness; and, like spirits, o'er the sward
The glimmering winds bring fragrance from afar.
And now withdrawn into the hill-wood belts
A whippoorwill; while, with attendant states
Of purple and silver, slow the great moon melts
Into the night – to show me where she waits, —
Like some slim moonbeam, – by the old beech-tree,
Who keeps her lips, fresh as a flower, for me.
 

After long Grief and Pain

 
There is a place hung o'er with summer boughs
And drowsy skies wherein the gray hawk sleeps;
Where waters flow, within whose lazy deeps,
Like silvery prisms that the winds arouse,
The minnows twinkle; where the bells of cows
Tinkle the stillness, and the bob-white keeps
Calling from meadows where the reaper reaps,
And children's laughter haunts an old-time house;
A place where life wears ever an honest smell
Of hay and honey, sun and elder-bloom —
Like some dear, modest girl – within her hair:
Where, with our love for comrade, we may dwell
Far from the city's strife whose cares consume —
Oh, take my hand and let me lead you there.
 

Can I Forget?

 
Can I forget how Love once led the ways
Of our two lives together, joining them;
How every hour was his anadem,
And every day a tablet in his praise!
Can I forget how, in his garden place,
Among the purple roses, stem to stem,
We heard the rumour of his robe's bright hem,
And saw the aureate radiance of his face! —
Though I behold my soul's high dreams down-hurled,
And Falsehood sit where Truth once towered white,
And in Love's place, usurping lust and shame…
Though flowers be dead within the winter world,
Are flowers not there? and starless though the night,
Are stars not there, eternal and the same?
 

The House of Fear

 
Vast are its halls, as vast the halls and lone
Where Death stalks listening to the wind and rain;
And dark that house, where I shall meet again
My long-dead Sin in some dread way unknown;
For I have dreamed of stairs of haunted stone,
And spectre footsteps I have fled in vain;
And windows glaring with a blood-red stain,
And horrible eyes, that burn me to the bone,
Within a face that looks as that black night
It looked when deep I dug for it a grave, —
The dagger wound above the brow, the thin
Blood trickling down slantwise the ghastly white; —
And I have dreamed not even God can save
Me and my soul from that risen Sin.