6
Once more my annual harp! alas,
'Tis the sixth season nearly run
Since the brown lizard through the grass
Crept slow, and took the autumn sun:
Since the wild maple boughs above
Shook down their leaves of gold and red,
The while I made my song of love—
If there be angels overhead
Methinks before their watchful eyes
They well may cross their wings and rest;
What need they guardians in the skies
Who with a human love are blest?
Ah me! what wretched storms of tears
Have made maturer life a dearth,—
For the white visions of young years
Grow dimmer than the common earth?
In vain! the swart October brings,
In its rough arms, no April day—
The ousel plunges its wild wings
But in the rainy brooks of May.
The rose that in the June time rain
Comes open, could not, if it would
Shut up its red-ripe leaves again,
And go back to a blushing bud.
And when the step is dull and slow,
And when the eye no longer beams
With the glad hopes of years ago,
What purpose has the heart with dreams?
Away, wild thoughts of sorrow's flood—
Wild dreams of early love, away!
In calm and passionless womanhood,
Why come ye thronging back to-day?
And you, ye questionings that rise,
Of life and death and hope's surcease,
Seal up again your mockeries—
Peace, peace! I charge you give me peace!
And let me from the pain and gloom
Gather whatever seems like truth,
Forgetful of the opening tomb,
Forgetful of the closing youth.
Fain would my thoughts a searching go
For one who left me years away—
Haply the unblest grasses grow
Upon his sweet shut eyes, to-day.
Oft when the evening's mellow gleam
Falls slantwise o'er some western hill,
And like a ponderous, golden beam
Lies rocking—all my heart grows still.
Listening and listening for the fall
Of his dear step, the cold moon shines
Betimes across the southern hall,
And the black shadows of the vines
O'erblow the mouldy walls, and lie
Heavy along the winding walks—
Where oft we set, in Mays gone by,
Streaked lady-grass and hollyhocks.
Within a stone's throw seems the sky
Against the faded woods to bend,
Just as of old the corn-fields lie;
But we, oh, we are changed, my friend!
Since last I saw these maples fade,
The locusts in the burial ground
Have wrapt their melancholy shade
About a new and turfless mound.
And one who last year heard with me
The summer's dirges wild and dread,
Has joined the peaceful company
Whom we, the living, mourn as dead.
Turning for solace unto thee,
Oh, Future! from the pleasures gone,
Misshapen earth, through mists I see,
That fancy dare not look upon.
God of the earth and heaven above,
Hear me in mercy, hear me pray—
Let not one golden stran of love
From my life's skein be shorn away.
Or if, in thy all-wise decree,
The edict be not written so,
Grant, Lord of light! the earnest plea
That I may be the first to go.
And when the harper of wide space
Shall chant again his mournful hymn.
While on the summer's pale dead face
The leaves are dropping thick and dim—
When songs of robins all are o'er,
And when his work the ant forsakes,
And in the stubbly glebe no more
The grasshopper his pastime takes—
What time the gray-roofed barn is full,
The sober smiling harvest done,
And whiter than the late washed wool,
The flax is bleaching in the sun—
The friends who sewed my shroud, sometimes
Shall come about my grave: in tears
Repeating over saddest rhymes
From annuaries of past years.
'Tis the sixth season nearly run
Since the brown lizard through the grass
Crept slow, and took the autumn sun:
Since the wild maple boughs above
Shook down their leaves of gold and red,
The while I made my song of love—
If there be angels overhead
Methinks before their watchful eyes
They well may cross their wings and rest;
What need they guardians in the skies
Who with a human love are blest?
Ah me! what wretched storms of tears
Have made maturer life a dearth,—
For the white visions of young years
Grow dimmer than the common earth?
In vain! the swart October brings,
In its rough arms, no April day—
The ousel plunges its wild wings
But in the rainy brooks of May.
The rose that in the June time rain
Comes open, could not, if it would
Shut up its red-ripe leaves again,
And go back to a blushing bud.
And when the step is dull and slow,
And when the eye no longer beams
With the glad hopes of years ago,
What purpose has the heart with dreams?
Away, wild thoughts of sorrow's flood—
Wild dreams of early love, away!
In calm and passionless womanhood,
Why come ye thronging back to-day?
And you, ye questionings that rise,
Of life and death and hope's surcease,
Seal up again your mockeries—
Peace, peace! I charge you give me peace!
And let me from the pain and gloom
Gather whatever seems like truth,
Forgetful of the opening tomb,
Forgetful of the closing youth.
Fain would my thoughts a searching go
For one who left me years away—
Haply the unblest grasses grow
Upon his sweet shut eyes, to-day.
Oft when the evening's mellow gleam
Falls slantwise o'er some western hill,
And like a ponderous, golden beam
Lies rocking—all my heart grows still.
Listening and listening for the fall
Of his dear step, the cold moon shines
Betimes across the southern hall,
And the black shadows of the vines
O'erblow the mouldy walls, and lie
Heavy along the winding walks—
Where oft we set, in Mays gone by,
Streaked lady-grass and hollyhocks.
Within a stone's throw seems the sky
Against the faded woods to bend,
Just as of old the corn-fields lie;
But we, oh, we are changed, my friend!
Since last I saw these maples fade,
The locusts in the burial ground
Have wrapt their melancholy shade
About a new and turfless mound.
And one who last year heard with me
The summer's dirges wild and dread,
Has joined the peaceful company
Whom we, the living, mourn as dead.
Turning for solace unto thee,
Oh, Future! from the pleasures gone,
Misshapen earth, through mists I see,
That fancy dare not look upon.
God of the earth and heaven above,
Hear me in mercy, hear me pray—
Let not one golden stran of love
From my life's skein be shorn away.
Or if, in thy all-wise decree,
The edict be not written so,
Grant, Lord of light! the earnest plea
That I may be the first to go.
And when the harper of wide space
Shall chant again his mournful hymn.
While on the summer's pale dead face
The leaves are dropping thick and dim—
When songs of robins all are o'er,
And when his work the ant forsakes,
And in the stubbly glebe no more
The grasshopper his pastime takes—
What time the gray-roofed barn is full,
The sober smiling harvest done,
And whiter than the late washed wool,
The flax is bleaching in the sun—
The friends who sewed my shroud, sometimes
Shall come about my grave: in tears
Repeating over saddest rhymes
From annuaries of past years.
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