tree

Those who have touched it or been touched by it
Or brushed by something that the vine has brushed,
Or burning it, have stood where the sly smoke
Has touched them-Know the meaning of its name.

The leaf is smooth. Its green is innocence.
A clean, unblemished leaf, glossy when young.
A leaf the unobserving might overlook
And the observing find too prosperous.

I've seen a vine of it so old and crooked
It held a hen-coop in its grip, the stalk
Thick as a man's wrist. There it had grown,

The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bow'r,

Could Fate ordain a lot for me
Beyond all human ills,
I think that I would choose to be
A shephard of the hills;
With shaggy cloak and cape where skies
Eternally are blue
How I would stare with quiet eyes
At passing you!
II
And you would stare at static me,
Beside my patient flock;
And I would watch you silently,
A one with time and rock.
Then foreign farings you would chart,

I love to see the old heath's withered brake
Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze and ling,
While the old heron from the lonely lake
Starts slow and flaps its melancholy wing,
An oddling crow in idle motion swing
On the half-rotten ash-tree's topmost twig,
Beside whose trunk the gypsy makes his bed.
Up flies the bouncing woodcock from the brig
Where a black quagmire quakes beneath the tread;
The fieldfares chatter in the whistling thorn
And for the haw round fields and closen rove,

587

Empty my Heart, of Thee—
Its single Artery—
Begin, and leave Thee out—
Simply Extinction's Date—

Much Billow hath the Sea—
One Baltic—They—
Subtract Thyself, in play,
And not enough of me
Is left—to put away—
"Myself" meanth Thee—

Erase the Root—no Tree—
Thee—then—no me—
The Heavens stripped—
Eternity's vast pocket, picked—

I

THERE’S not a person in the street,
This merry-making summer day!
The houses stand in dull array;
No profit on their doors to beat,
For all their owners are away.

The gardens blossom white and red
All solitary in the sun,
Save where some timid creatures run;
Secure across the lawns to tread,
No human dangers here to shun,—

Since men have gone on holiday;
Have left the still, suburban street
For that wide park, where people meet

Walking down the garden path
From the house you do not own,
Once again you think of how
Cool the autumns were at home.
Dressed as if you had just left
The courtyard of the summer palace,
Walk the boundaries of the park,
Count the steps you take each day -
Miles that span no distances,
Journeys in sunlight toward the dark.

Sit and watch the daylight play
Idly on the tops of leaves
Glistening overhead in autumn's
Absolute dominion.
Nothing lost by you excels
These empires of sunlight.

Is this a time to plant and build,
Add house to house, and field to field,
When round our walls the battle lowers,
When mines are hid beneath our towers,
And watchful foes are stealing round
To search and spoil the holy ground?

Is this a time for moonlight dreams
Of love and home by mazy streams,
For Fancy with her shadowy toys,
Aerial hopes and pensive joys,
While souls are wandering far and wide,
And curses swarm on every side?

No--rather steel thy melting heart

Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love,
And in that sophistry, Oh, thou dost prove
Too subtle: Foole, thou didst not understand
The mystic language of the eye nor hand:
Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air
Of sighs, and say, This lies, this sounds despair:
Nor by th' eyes water call a malady
Desperately hot, or changing feverously.
I had not taught thee, then, the Alphabet
Of flowers, how they devisefully being set
And bound up might with speechless secrecy
Deliver errands mutely, and mutually.

"With female Fairies will thy tomb be haunted
"And worms will not come to thee." SHAKSPERE.


WHEN from Day's closing eye the lucid tears
Fall lightly on the bending lily's head;
When o'er the blushing sky night's curtains spread,
And the tall mountain's summit scarce appears;
When languid Evening, sinking to repose,
Her filmy mantle o'er the landscape throws;
Of THEE I'll sing; and as the mournful song
Glides in slow numbers the dark woods among;
My wand'ring steps shall seek the lonely shade,