Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

from Sonnets, Second Series XXX Yet, even ‘mid merry boyhood’s tricks and scapes, Early my heart a deeper lesson learnt; Wandering alone by many a mile burnt Black woodside, that but the snow-flake decks and drapes. And I have stood beneath Canadian sky, In utter solitudes, where the cricket’s cry Appals the heart, and fear takes visible shapes; And on Long Island’s void and isolate capes Heard the sea break like iron bars: and still, In all, I seemed to hear the same deep dirge; Borne in the wind, the insect’s tiny trill, And crash and jangle of the shaking surge; And knew not what they meant,—prophetic woe? Dim bodings, wherefore? Now, indeed, I know!

from Sonnets, Third Series IV Thin little leaves of wood fern, ribbed and toothed, Long curved sail needles of the green pitch pine, With common sandgrass, skirt the horizon line, And over these the incorruptible blue! Here let me gently lie and softly view All world asperities, lightly touched and smoothed As by his gracious hand, the great Bestower. What though the year be late? some colors run Yet through the dry, some links of melody. Still let me be, by such, assuaged and soothed And happier made, as when, our schoolday done, We hunted on from flower to frosty flower, Tattered and dim, the last red butterfly, Or the old grasshopper molasses-mouthed.

from Sonnets, Second Series XVII Roll on, sad world! not Mercury or Mars Could swifter speed, or slower, round the sun, Than in this year of variance thou hast done For me. Yet pain, fear, heart-break, woes, and wars Have natural limit; from his dread eclipse The swift sun hastens, and the night debars The day, but to bring in the day more bright; The flowers renew their odorous fellowships; The moon runs round and round; the slow earth dips, True to her poise, and lifts; the planet-stars Roll and return from circle to ellipse; The day is dull and soft, the eave-trough drips; And yet I know the splendor of the light Will break anon: look! where the gray is white!

from Sonnets, Third Series V How well do I recall that walk in state Across the Common, by the paths we knew: Myself in silver badge and riband blue, My little sister with her book and slate; The elm tree by the Pond, the fence of wood, The burial place that at the corner stood Where once we crossed, through the forbidden grate, The stones that grudg’d us way, the graveside weed, The ominous wind that turned us half about. Smit the flying drops, at what a speed Across the paths, unblessed and unforgiven We hurried homeward when the day was late And heard, with awe that left no place for doubt, God’s anger mutter in the darkened heaven.

from Sonnets, Second Series XXIX How oft in schoolboy-days, from the school’s sway Have I run forth to Nature as to a friend,— With some pretext of o’erwrought sight, to spend My school-time in green meadows far away! Careless of summoning bell, or clocks that strike, I marked with flowers the minutes of my day: For still the eye that shrank from hated hours, Dazzled with decimal and dividend, Knew each bleached alder-root that plashed across The bubbling brook, and every mass of moss; Could tell the month, too, by the vervain-spike,— How far the ring of purple tiny flowers Had climbed; just starting, may-be, with the May, Half-light, or tapering off at Summer’s end.

from Sonnets, First Series VI Dank fens of cedar; hemlock-branches gray With trees and trail of mosses, wringing-wet; Beds of the black pitchpine in dead leaves set Whose wasted red has wasted to white away; Remnants of rain and droppings of decay, — Why hold ye so my heart, nor dimly let Through your deep leaves the light of yesterday, The faded glimmer of a sunshine set? Is it that in your darkness, shut from strife, The bread of tears becomes the bread of life? Far from the roar of day, beneath your boughs Fresh griefs beat tranquilly, and loves and vows Grow green in your gray shadows, dearer far Even than all lovely lights and roses are?

from Sonnets, Second Series XVIII And Change, with hurried hand, has swept these scenes: The woods have fallen; across the meadow-lot The hunter’s trail and trap-path is forgot; And fire has drunk the swamps of evergreens! Yet for a moment let my fancy plant These autumn hills again,—the wild dove’s haunt, The wild deer’s walk. In golden umbrage shut, The Indian river runs, Quonecktacut! Here, but a lifetime back, where falls to-night Behind the curtained pane a sheltered light On buds of rose, or vase of violet Aloft upon the marble mantel set,— Here, in the forest-heart, hung blackening The wolf-bait on the bush beside the spring.