Poems of Nature · Part 8

THE MOON

‘Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide; Mortality below her orb is placed.’--RALEIGH.

The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray Mounts up the eastern sky, Not doomed to these short nights for aye, But shining steadily.

She does not wane, but my fortùne, Which her rays do not bless; My wayward path declineth soon, But she shines not the less.

And if she faintly glimmers here And palèd is her light, Yet always in her proper sphere She’s mistress of the night.

THE VIREO

Upon the lofty elm-tree sprays The vireo rings the changes sweet, During the trivial summer days, Striving to lift our thoughts above the street.

THE POET’S DELAY

In vain I see the morning rise, In vain observe the western blaze, Who idly look to other skies, Expecting life by other ways.

Amidst such boundless wealth without, I only still am poor within, The birds have sung their summer out, But still my spring does not begin.

Shall I then wait the autumn wind, Compelled to seek a milder day, And leave no curious nest behind, No woods still echoing to my lay?

LINES

All things are current found On earthly ground, Spirits and elements Have their descents.

Night and day, year on year, High and low, far and near, These are our own aspects, These are our own regrets.

Ye gods of the shore, Who abide evermore, I see your far headland, Stretching on either hand; I hear the sweet evening sounds From your undecaying grounds; Cheat me no more with time, Take me to your clime.

NATURE’S CHILD

I am the autumnal sun, With autumn gales my race is run; When will the hazel put forth its flowers, Or the grape ripen under my bowers? When will the harvest or the hunter’s moon, Turn my midnight into mid-noon? I am all sere and yellow, And to my core mellow. The mast is dropping within my woods, The winter is lurking within my moods, And the rustling of the withered leaf Is the constant music of my grief.

THE FALL OF THE LEAF[10]

Thank God who seasons thus the year, And sometimes kindly slants his rays; For in his winter he’s most near And plainest seen upon the shortest days.

Who gently tempers now his heats, And then his harsher cold, lest we Should surfeit on the summer’s sweets, Or pine upon the winter’s crudity.

A sober mind will walk alone, Apart from nature, if need be, And only its own seasons own; For nature leaving its humanity.

Sometimes a late autumnal thought Has crossed my mind in green July, And to its early freshness brought Late ripened fruits, and an autumnal sky.

The evening of the year draws on, The fields a later aspect wear; Since Summer’s garishness is gone, Some grains of night tincture the noontide air.

Behold! the shadows of the trees Now circle wider ’bout their stem, Like sentries that by slow degrees Perform their rounds, gently protecting them.

And as the year doth decline, The sun allows a scantier light; Behind each needle of the pine There lurks a small auxiliar to the night.

I hear the cricket’s slumbrous lay Around, beneath me, and on high; It rocks the night, it soothes the day, And everywhere is Nature’s lullaby.

But most he chirps beneath the sod, When he has made his winter bed; His creak grown fainter but more broad, A film of autumn o’er the summer spread.

Small birds, in fleets migrating by, Now beat across some meadow’s bay, And as they tack and veer on high, With faint and hurried click beguile the way.

Far in the woods, these golden days, Some leaf obeys its Maker’s call; And through their hollow aisles it plays With delicate touch the prelude of the Fall.

Gently withdrawing from its stem, It lightly lays itself along Where the same hand hath pillowed them, Resigned to sleep upon the old year’s throng.

The loneliest birch is brown and sere, The furthest pool is strewn with leaves, Which float upon their watery bier, Where is no eye that sees, no heart that grieves.

The jay screams through the chestnut wood; The crisped and yellow leaves around Are hue and texture of my mood-- And these rough burrs my heirlooms on the ground.

The threadbare trees, so poor and thin-- They are no wealthier than I; But with as brave a core within They rear their boughs to the October sky.

Poor knights they are which bravely wait The charge of Winter’s cavalry, Keeping a simple Roman state, Discumbered of their Persian luxury.

SMOKE IN WINTER

The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell, The stiffened air exploring in the dawn, And making slow acquaintance with the day; Delaying now upon its heavenward course, In wreathèd loiterings dallying with itself, With as uncertain purpose and slow deed, As its half-wakened master by the hearth, Whose mind, still slumbering, and sluggish thoughts Have not yet swept into the onward current Of the new day;--and now it streams afar, The while the chopper goes with step direct, And mind intent to wield the early axe. First in the dusky dawn he sends abroad His early scout, his emissary, smoke, The earliest, latest pilgrim from the roof, To feel the frosty air, inform the day; And while he crouches still beside the hearth, Nor musters courage to unbar the door, It has gone down the glen with the light wind, And o’er the plain unfurled its venturous wreath, Draped the tree-tops, loitered upon the hill, And warmed the pinions of the early bird; And now, perchance, high in the crispy air, Has caught sight of the day o’er the earth’s edge, And greets its master’s eye at his low door, As some refulgent cloud in the upper sky.