134 Winter poems

(excerpt) Hark! ’tis the twanging horn! o’er yonder bridge, That with its wearisome but needful length Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright; He comes, the herald of a noisy world, With spatter’d boots, strapp’d waist, and frozen locks, News from all nations lumb’ring at his back. True to his charge, the close-pack’d load behind, Yet careless what he brings, his one concern Is to conduct it to the destin’d inn: And having dropp’d th’ expected bag—pass on. He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some, To him indiff’rent whether grief or joy. Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet With tears, that trickled down the writer’s cheeks, Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, Or charg’d with am’rous sighs of absent swains, Or nymphs responsive, equally affect His horse and him, unconscious of them all. But oh th’ important budget! usher’d in With such heart-shaking music, who can say What are its tidings? have our troops awak’d? Or do they still, as if with opium drugg’d, Snore to the murmurs of th’ Atlantic wave? Is India free? and does she wear her plum’d And jewell’d turban with a smile of peace, Or do we grind her still? The grand debate, The popular harangue, the tart reply, The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit, And the loud laugh—I long to know them all; I burn to set th’ imprison’d wranglers free, And give them voice and utt’rance once again. Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful ev’ning in. Not such his ev’ning, who with shining face Sweats in the crowded theatre, and squeez’d And bor’d with elbow-points through both his sides, Out-scolds the ranting actor on the stage: Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb, And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath Of patriots, bursting with heroic rage, Or placemen, all tranquility and smiles. This folio of four pages, happy work! Which not ev’n critics criticise; that holds Inquisitive attention, while I read, Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break; What is it but a map of busy life, Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns? . . . Oh Winter! ruler of th’ inverted year, Thy scatter’d hair with sleet like ashes fill’d, Thy breath congeal’d upon thy lips, thy cheeks Fring’d with a beard made white with other snows Than those of age; thy forehead wrapt in clouds, A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne A sliding car, indebted to no wheels, But urg’d by storms along its slipp’ry way; I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’st, And dreaded as thou art!  Thou hold’st the sun A pris’ner in the yet undawning East, Short’ning his journey between morn and noon, And hurrying him, impatient of his stay, Down to the rosy West; but kindly still Compensating his loss with added hours Of social converse and instructive ease, And gathering at short notice, in one group, The family dispers’d, and fixing thought, Not less dispers’d by day-light and its cares. I crown thee King of intimate delights, Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturb’d retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening, know. No ratt’ling wheels stop short before these gates; No powder’d pert proficient in the art Of sounding an alarm, assaults these doors Till the street rings; no stationary steeds Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound, The silent circle fan themselves, and quake: But here the needle plies its busy task, The pattern grows, the well-depicted flow’r, Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn, Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs, And curling tendrils, gracefully dispos’d, Follow the nimble finger of the fair; A wreath that cannot fade, or flow’rs that blow With most success when all besides decay. The poet’s or historian’s page, by one Made vocal for th’ amusement of the rest; The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds The touch from many a trembling chord shakes out; And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct, And in the charming strife triumphant still, Beguile the night, and set a keener edge On female industry; the threaded steel Flies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds. The volume clos’d, the customary rites Of the last meal commence.  A Roman meal; Such as the mistress of the world once found Delicious, when her patriots of high note, Perhaps by moonlight, at their humble doors, And under an old oak’s domestic shade, Enjoy’d, spare feast! a radish and an egg. Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull, Nor such as with a frown forbids the play Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth: Nor do we madly, like an impious world, Who deem religion frenzy, and the God That made them an intruder on their joys, Start at his awful name, or deem his praise A jarring note.  Themes of a graver tone, Exciting oft our gratitude and love, While we retrace with mem’ry’s pointing wand, That calls the past to our exact review, The dangers we have ’scap’d, the broken snare, The disappointed foe, deliv’rance found Unlook’d for, life preserv’d and peace restor’d, Fruits of omnipotent eternal love. Oh ev’nings worthy of the Gods! exclaim’d The Sabine bard.  Oh ev’nings, I reply, More to be priz’d and coveted than yours, As more illumin’d, and with nobler truths, That I and mine, and those we love, enjoy.

(excerpt) ’Tis morning; and the sun with ruddy orb Ascending, fires the horizon: while the clouds That crowd away before the driving wind, More ardent as the disk emerges more, Resemble most some city in a blaze, Seen through the leafless wood.  His slanting ray Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, And tinging all with his own rosy hue, From ev’ry herb and ev’ry spiry blade Stretches a length of shadow o’er the field. Mine, spindling into longitude immense, In spite of gravity, and sage remark That I myself am but a fleeting shade, Provokes me to a smile.  With eye askance I view the muscular proportion’d limb Transform’d to a lean shank.  The shapeless pair, As they design’d to mock me, at my side Take step for step; and as I near approach The cottage, walk along the plaster’d wall, Prepost’rous sight! the legs without the man. The verdure of the plain lies buried deep Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents, And coarser grass upspearing o’er the rest, Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, And fledg’d with icy feathers, nod superb. The cattle mourn in corners where the fence Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep In unrecumbent sadness.  There they wait Their wonted fodder; not like hung’ring man Fretful if unsupply’d, but silent, meek, And patient of the slow-pac’d swain’s delay. He from the stack carves out th’ accustom’d load, Deep-plunging, and again deep plunging oft His broad keen knife into the solid mass; Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands, With such undeviating and even force He severs it away: no needless care Lest storms should overset the leaning pile Deciduous, or its own unbalanc’d weight. . . . ’Tis liberty alone that gives the flow’r Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume, And we are weeds without it.  All constraint, Except what wisdom lays on evil men, Is evil; hurts the faculties, impedes Their progress in the road of science; blinds The eyesight of discov’ry, and begets, In those that suffer it, a sordid mind Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit To be the tenant of man’s noble form. Thee therefore still, blame-worthy as thou art, With all thy loss of empire, and though squeez’d By public exigence till annual food Fails for the craving hunger of the state, Thee I account still happy, and the chief Among the nations, seeing thou art free! My native nook of earth! . . . But there is yet a liberty unsung By poets, and by senators unprais’d, Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the powers Of earth and hell confed’rate take away. A liberty, which persecution, fraud, Oppression, prisons, have no pow’r to bind, Which whoso tastes can be enslav’d no more. ’Tis liberty of heart, deriv’d from heav’n, Bought with HIS blood who gave it to mankind, And seal’d with the same token.  It is held By charter, and that charter sanction’d sure By th’ unimpeachable and awful oath And promise of a God.  His other gifts All bear the royal stamp that speaks them his, And are august, but this transcends them all.

Plows have piled a whitened range— faux mountains at the end of our street, slopes shrinking, glazed, grayed. Fog rules the day. In woolly air, shapes stir—slow cars leave a trace of exhaust, careful walkers share loud intimacies. My mother's birth slides across a calendar. Like a stranger who jumps off a bus, crosses tracks and strides toward us, memory parts the sodden gloom of our winter, as though, today, only she can see where she goes and track where she's been.

A kind of counter- blossoming, diversionary, doomed, and like the needle with its drop of blood a little too transparently in love with doom, takes issue with the season: Not (the serviceberry bright with explanation) not (the redbud unspooling its silks) I know I've read the book but not (the lilac, the larch) quite yet, I still have one more card to play. Behold a six-hour wonder: six new inches bedecking the railing, the bench, the top of the circular table like a risen cake. The saplings made (who little thought what beauty weighs) to bow before their elders. The moment bears more than the usual signs of its own demise, but isn't that the bravery? Built on nothing but the self- same knots of air and ice. Already the lip of it riddled with flaws, a sort of vascular lesion that betokens—what? betokens the gathering return to elementals. (She was frightened for a minute, who had planned to be so calm.) A dripline scoring the edge of the walk. The cotton batting blown against the screen begun to pill and molt. (Who clothed them out of mercy in the skins of beasts.) And even as the last of the lightness continues to fall, the seepage underneath has gained momentum. (So that there must have been a death before the death we call the first or what became of them, the ones whose skins were taken.) Now the more- of-casting-backward-than-of- forward part, which must have happened while I wasn't looking or was looking at the skinning knives. I think I'll call this mercy too.

The last snow is baited. Where the future shatters it unbends. The dry bed of entirety, where the sun bends, shatters. I was not afraid to tell you: unobscene at the first and then the third horizon, a copse-mountain opened so near to me I weighed nothing, and you laid the flower in my mouth. These are not animals. These are the partial genocides deeply uncompensated. Under the grass there is nothing but water and two wings.

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

’Tis merry to hear, at evening time, By the blazing hearth the sleigh-bells chime; To know the bounding steeds bring near The loved one to our bosoms dear. Ah, lightly we spring the fire to raise, Till the rafters glow with the ruddy blaze; Those merry sleigh-bells, our hearts keep time Responsive to their fairy chime. Ding-dong, ding-dong, o’er vale and hill, Their welcome notes are trembling still. ’Tis he, and blithely the gay bells sound, As his sleigh glides over the frozen ground; Hark! He has pass’d the dark pine wood, He crosses now the ice-bound flood, And hails the light at the open door That tells his toilsome journey’s o’er. The merry sleigh-bells! My fond heart swells And trobs to hear the welcome bells; Ding-dong, ding-dong, o’er ice and snow, A voice of gladness, on they go. Our hut is small, and rude our cheer, But love has spread the banquet here; And childhood springs to be caress’d By our beloved and welcome guest. With a smiling brow his tale he tells, The urchins ring the merry sleigh-bells; The merry sleigh-bells, with shout and song They drag the noisy string along; Ding-dong, ding-dong, the father’s come The gay bells ring his welcome home. From the cedar swamp the gaunt wolves howl, From the oak loud whoops the felon owl; The snow-storm sweeps in thunder past, The forest creaks beneath the blast; No more I list, with boding fear, The sleigh-bells distant chime to hear. The merry sleigh-bells with soothing power Shed gladness on the evening hour. Ding-dong, ding-dong, what rapture swells The music of those joyous bells!

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was Spawning snow and pink roses against it Soundlessly collateral and incompatible: World is suddener than we fancy it. World is crazier and more of it than we think, Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion A tangerine and spit the pips and feel The drunkenness of things being various. And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes— On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands— There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

Snow is what it does. It falls and it stays and it goes. It melts and it is here somewhere. We all will get there.

To the Memory of the Household It Describes This Poem is Dedicated by the Author “As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits, which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.” —Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, Book I.ch. v. “Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of Storm.” EMERSON, The Snow Storm. The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon. Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set. A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of life-blood in the sharpened face, The coming of the snow-storm told. The wind blew east; we heard the roar Of Ocean on his wintry shore, And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythm our inland air. Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,— Brought in the wood from out of doors, Littered the stalls, and from the mows Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows; Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; And, sharply clashing horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows The cattle shake their walnut bows; While, peering from his early perch Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch, The cock his crested helmet bent And down his querulous challenge sent. Unwarmed by any sunset light The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, As zigzag, wavering to and fro, Crossed and recrossed the wingëd snow: And ere the early bedtime came The white drift piled the window-frame, And through the glass the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. So all night long the storm roared on: The morning broke without a sun; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature’s geometric signs, In starry flake, and pellicle, All day the hoary meteor fell; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below,— A universe of sky and snow! The old familiar sights of ours Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, Or garden-wall, or belt of wood; A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, A fenceless drift what once was road; The bridle-post an old man sat With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat; The well-curb had a Chinese roof; And even the long sweep, high aloof, In its slant splendor, seemed to tell Of Pisa’s leaning miracle. A prompt, decisive man, no breath Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!” Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy Count such a summons less than joy?) Our buskins on our feet we drew; With mittened hands, and caps drawn low, To guard our necks and ears from snow, We cut the solid whiteness through. And, where the drift was deepest, made A tunnel walled and overlaid With dazzling crystal: we had read Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave, And to our own his name we gave, With many a wish the luck were ours To test his lamp’s supernal powers. We reached the barn with merry din, And roused the prisoned brutes within. The old horse thrust his long head out, And grave with wonder gazed about; The cock his lusty greeting said, And forth his speckled harem led; The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, And mild reproach of hunger looked; The hornëd patriarch of the sheep, Like Egypt’s Amun roused from sleep, Shook his sage head with gesture mute, And emphasized with stamp of foot. All day the gusty north-wind bore The loosening drift its breath before; Low circling round its southern zone, The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. No church-bell lent its Christian tone To the savage air, no social smoke Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. A solitude made more intense By dreary-voicëd elements, The shrieking of the mindless wind, The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, And on the glass the unmeaning beat Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. Beyond the circle of our hearth No welcome sound of toil or mirth Unbound the spell, and testified Of human life and thought outside. We minded that the sharpest ear The buried brooklet could not hear, The music of whose liquid lip Had been to us companionship, And, in our lonely life, had grown To have an almost human tone. As night drew on, and, from the crest Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank From sight beneath the smothering bank, We piled, with care, our nightly stack Of wood against the chimney-back,— The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, And on its top the stout back-stick; The knotty forestick laid apart, And filled between with curious art The ragged brush; then, hovering near, We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, Until the old, rude-furnished room Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; While radiant with a mimic flame Outside the sparkling drift became, And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. The crane and pendent trammels showed, The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed; While childish fancy, prompt to tell The meaning of the miracle, Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree, When fire outdoors burns merrily, There the witches are making tea.” The moon above the eastern wood Shone at its full; the hill-range stood Transfigured in the silver flood, Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, Dead white, save where some sharp ravine Took shadow, or the sombre green Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black Against the whiteness at their back. For such a world and such a night Most fitting that unwarming light, Which only seemed where’er it fell To make the coldness visible. Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about, Content to let the north-wind roar In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost-line back with tropic heat; And ever, when a louder blast Shook beam and rafter as it passed, The merrier up its roaring draught The great throat of the chimney laughed; The house-dog on his paws outspread Laid to the fire his drowsy head, The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall; And, for the winter fireside meet, Between the andirons’ straddling feet, The mug of cider simmered slow, The apples sputtered in a row, And, close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October’s wood. What matter how the night behaved? What matter how the north-wind raved? Blow high, blow low, not all its snow Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow. O Time and Change!—with hair as gray As was my sire’s that winter day, How strange it seems, with so much gone Of life and love, to still live on! Ah, brother! only I and thou Are left of all that circle now,— The dear home faces whereupon That fitful firelight paled and shone. Henceforward, listen as we will, The voices of that hearth are still; Look where we may, the wide earth o’er, Those lighted faces smile no more. We tread the paths their feet have worn, We sit beneath their orchard trees, We hear, like them, the hum of bees And rustle of the bladed corn; We turn the pages that they read, Their written words we linger o’er, But in the sun they cast no shade, No voice is heard, no sign is made, No step is on the conscious floor! Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, (Since He who knows our need is just,) That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees! Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play! Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That Life is ever lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own! We sped the time with stories old, Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told, Or stammered from our school-book lore “The Chief of Gambia’s golden shore.” How often since, when all the land Was clay in Slavery’s shaping hand, As if a far-blown trumpet stirred The languorous sin-sick air, I heard: “Does not the voice of reason cry, Claim the first right which Nature gave, From the red scourge of bondage to fly, Nor deign to live a burdened slave!“ Our father rode again his ride On Memphremagog’s wooded side; Sat down again to moose and samp In trapper’s hut and Indian camp; Lived o’er the old idyllic ease Beneath St. François’ hemlock-trees; Again for him the moonlight shone On Norman cap and bodiced zone; Again he heard the violin play Which led the village dance away. And mingled in its merry whirl The grandam and the laughing girl. Or, nearer home, our steps he led Where Salisbury’s level marshes spread Mile-wide as flies the laden bee; Where merry mowers, hale and strong, Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along The low green prairies of the sea. We shared the fishing off Boar’s Head, And round the rocky Isles of Shoals The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals; The chowder on the sand-beach made, Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot, With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. We heard the tales of witchcraft old, And dream and sign and marvel told To sleepy listeners as they lay Stretched idly on the salted hay, Adrift along the winding shores, When favoring breezes deigned to blow The square sail of the gundelow And idle lay the useless oars. Our mother, while she turned her wheel Or run the new-knit stocking-heel, Told how the Indian hordes came down At midnight on Concheco town, And how her own great-uncle bore His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. Recalling, in her fitting phrase, So rich and picturesque and free (The common unrhymed poetry Of simple life and country ways,) The story of her early days,— She made us welcome to her home; Old hearths grew wide to give us room; We stole with her a frightened look At the gray wizard’s conjuring-book, The fame whereof went far and wide Through all the simple country side; We heard the hawks at twilight play, The boat-horn on Piscataqua, The loon’s weird laughter far away; We fished her little trout-brook, knew What flowers in wood and meadow grew, What sunny hillsides autumn-brown She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down, Saw where in sheltered cove and bay, The ducks’ black squadron anchored lay, And heard the wild-geese calling loud Beneath the gray November cloud. Then, haply, with a look more grave, And soberer tone, some tale she gave From painful Sewel’s ancient tome, Beloved in every Quaker home, Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom, Or Chalkley’s Journal, old and quaint,— Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint!— Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, And water-butt and bread-cask failed, And cruel, hungry eyes pursued His portly presence mad for food, With dark hints muttered under breath Of casting lots for life or death, Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, To be himself the sacrifice. Then, suddenly, as if to save The good man from his living grave, A ripple on the water grew, A school of porpoise flashed in view. “Take, eat,” he said, “and be content; These fishes in my stead are sent By Him who gave the tangled ram To spare the child of Abraham.” Our uncle, innocent of books, Was rich in lore of fields and brooks, The ancient teachers never dumb Of Nature’s unhoused lyceum. In moons and tides and weather wise, He read the clouds as prophecies, And foul or fair could well divine, By many an occult hint and sign, Holding the cunning-warded keys To all the woodcraft mysteries; Himself to Nature’s heart so near That all her voices in his ear Of beast or bird had meanings clear, Like Apollonius of old, Who knew the tales the sparrows told, Or Hermes, who interpreted What the sage cranes of Nilus said; A simple, guileless, childlike man, Content to live where life began; Strong only on his native grounds, The little world of sights and sounds Whose girdle was the parish bounds, Whereof his fondly partial pride The common features magnified, As Surrey hills to mountains grew In White of Selborne’s loving view,— He told how teal and loon he shot, And how the eagle’s eggs he got, The feats on pond and river done, The prodigies of rod and gun; Till, warming with the tales he told, Forgotten was the outside cold, The bitter wind unheeded blew, From ripening corn the pigeons flew, The partridge drummed i’ the wood, the mink Went fishing down the river-brink. In fields with bean or clover gay, The woodchuck, like a hermit gray, Peered from the doorway of his cell; The muskrat plied the mason’s trade, And tier by tier his mud-walls laid; And from the shagbark overhead The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer And voice in dreams I see and hear,— The sweetest woman ever Fate Perverse denied a household mate, Who, lonely, homeless, not the less Found peace in love’s unselfishness, And welcome wheresoe’er she went, A calm and gracious element, Whose presence seemed the sweet income And womanly atmosphere of home,— Called up her girlhood memories, The huskings and the apple-bees, The sleigh-rides and the summer sails, Weaving through all the poor details And homespun warp of circumstance A golden woof-thread of romance. For well she kept her genial mood And simple faith of maidenhood; Before her still a cloud-land lay, The mirage loomed across her way; The morning dew, that dries so soon With others, glistened at her noon; Through years of toil and soil and care, From glossy tress to thin gray hair, All unprofaned she held apart The virgin fancies of the heart. Be shame to him of woman born Who hath for such but thought of scorn. There, too, our elder sister plied Her evening task the stand beside; A full, rich nature, free to trust, Truthful and almost sternly just, Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, And make her generous thought a fact, Keeping with many a light disguise The secret of self-sacrifice. O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best That Heaven itself could give thee,—rest, Rest from all bitter thoughts and things! How many a poor one’s blessing went With thee beneath the low green tent Whose curtain never outward swings! As one who held herself a part Of all she saw, and let her heart Against the household bosom lean, Upon the motley-braided mat Our youngest and our dearest sat, Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, Now bathed in the unfading green And holy peace of Paradise. Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, Or from the shade of saintly palms, Or silver reach of river calms, Do those large eyes behold me still? With me one little year ago:— The chill weight of the winter snow For months upon her grave has lain; And now, when summer south-winds blow And brier and harebell bloom again, I tread the pleasant paths we trod, I see the violet-sprinkled sod Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak The hillside flowers she loved to seek, Yet following me where’er I went With dark eyes full of love’s content. The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills The air with sweetness; all the hills Stretch green to June’s unclouded sky; But still I wait with ear and eye For something gone which should be nigh, A loss in all familiar things, In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. And yet, dear heart! remembering thee, Am I not richer than of old? Safe in thy immortality, What change can reach the wealth I hold? What chance can mar the pearl and gold Thy love hath left in trust with me? And while in life’s late afternoon, Where cool and long the shadows grow, I walk to meet the night that soon Shall shape and shadow overflow, I cannot feel that thou art far, Since near at need the angels are; And when the sunset gates unbar, Shall I not see thee waiting stand, And, white against the evening star, The welcome of thy beckoning hand? Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, The master of the district school Held at the fire his favored place, Its warm glow lit a laughing face Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared The uncertain prophecy of beard. He teased the mitten-blinded cat, Played cross-pins on my uncle’s hat, Sang songs, and told us what befalls In classic Dartmouth’s college halls. Born the wild Northern hills among, From whence his yeoman father wrung By patient toil subsistence scant, Not competence and yet not want, He early gained the power to pay His cheerful, self-reliant way; Could doff at ease his scholar’s gown To peddle wares from town to town; Or through the long vacation’s reach In lonely lowland districts teach, Where all the droll experience found At stranger hearths in boarding round, The moonlit skater’s keen delight, The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, The rustic party, with its rough Accompaniment of blind-man’s-buff, And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid, His winter task a pastime made. Happy the snow-locked homes wherein He tuned his merry violin, Or played the athlete in the barn, Or held the good dame’s winding-yarn, Or mirth-provoking versions told Of classic legends rare and old, Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome Had all the commonplace of home, And little seemed at best the odds ’Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods; Where Pindus-born Arachthus took The guise of any grist-mill brook, And dread Olympus at his will Became a huckleberry hill. A careless boy that night he seemed; But at his desk he had the look And air of one who wisely schemed, And hostage from the future took In trainëd thought and lore of book. Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he Shall Freedom’s young apostles be, Who, following in War’s bloody trail, Shall every lingering wrong assail; All chains from limb and spirit strike, Uplift the black and white alike; Scatter before their swift advance The darkness and the ignorance, The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth, Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth, Made murder pastime, and the hell Of prison-torture possible; The cruel lie of caste refute, Old forms remould, and substitute For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will, For blind routine, wise-handed skill; A school-house plant on every hill, Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence The quick wires of intelligence; Till North and South together brought Shall own the same electric thought, In peace a common flag salute, And, side by side in labor’s free And unresentful rivalry, Harvest the fields wherein they fought. Another guest that winter night Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. Unmarked by time, and yet not young, The honeyed music of her tongue And words of meekness scarcely told A nature passionate and bold, Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide, Its milder features dwarfed beside Her unbent will’s majestic pride. She sat among us, at the best, A not unfeared, half-welcome guest, Rebuking with her cultured phrase Our homeliness of words and ways. A certain pard-like, treacherous grace Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash, Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash; And under low brows, black with night, Rayed out at times a dangerous light; The sharp heat-lightnings of her face Presaging ill to him whom Fate Condemned to share her love or hate. A woman tropical, intense In thought and act, in soul and sense, She blended in a like degree The vixen and the devotee, Revealing with each freak or feint The temper of Petruchio’s Kate, The raptures of Siena’s saint. Her tapering hand and rounded wrist Had facile power to form a fist; The warm, dark languish of her eyes Was never safe from wrath’s surprise. Brows saintly calm and lips devout Knew every change of scowl and pout; And the sweet voice had notes more high And shrill for social battle-cry. Since then what old cathedral town Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, What convent-gate has held its lock Against the challenge of her knock! Through Smyrna’s plague-hushed thoroughfares, Up sea-set Malta’s rocky stairs, Gray olive slopes of hills that hem Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, Or startling on her desert throne The crazy Queen of Lebanon With claims fantastic as her own, Her tireless feet have held their way; And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, She watches under Eastern skies, With hope each day renewed and fresh, The Lord’s quick coming in the flesh, Whereof she dreams and prophesies! Where’er her troubled path may be, The Lord’s sweet pity with her go! The outward wayward life we see, The hidden springs we may not know. Nor is it given us to discern What threads the fatal sisters spun, Through what ancestral years has run The sorrow with the woman born, What forged her cruel chain of moods, What set her feet in solitudes, And held the love within her mute, What mingled madness in the blood, A life-long discord and annoy, Water of tears with oil of joy, And hid within the folded bud Perversities of flower and fruit. It is not ours to separate The tangled skein of will and fate, To show what metes and bounds should stand Upon the soul’s debatable land, And between choice and Providence Divide the circle of events; But He who knows our frame is just, Merciful and compassionate, And full of sweet assurances And hope for all the language is, That He remembereth we are dust! At last the great logs, crumbling low, Sent out a dull and duller glow, The bull’s-eye watch that hung in view, Ticking its weary circuit through, Pointed with mutely warning sign Its black hand to the hour of nine. That sign the pleasant circle broke: My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, And laid it tenderly away; Then roused himself to safely cover The dull red brands with ashes over. And while, with care, our mother laid The work aside, her steps she stayed One moment, seeking to express Her grateful sense of happiness For food and shelter, warmth and health, And love’s contentment more than wealth, With simple wishes (not the weak, Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek, But such as warm the generous heart, O’er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) That none might lack, that bitter night, For bread and clothing, warmth and light. Within our beds awhile we heard The wind that round the gables roared, With now and then a ruder shock, Which made our very bedsteads rock. We heard the loosened clapboards tost, The board-nails snapping in the frost; And on us, through the unplastered wall, Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. But sleep stole on, as sleep will do When hearts are light and life is new; Faint and more faint the murmurs grew, Till in the summer-land of dreams They softened to the sound of streams, Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, And lapsing waves on quiet shores. Next morn we wakened with the shout Of merry voices high and clear; And saw the teamsters drawing near To break the drifted highways out. Down the long hillside treading slow We saw the half-buried oxen go, Shaking the snow from heads uptost, Their straining nostrils white with frost. Before our door the straggling train Drew up, an added team to gain. The elders threshed their hands a-cold, Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes From lip to lip; the younger folks Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled, Then toiled again the cavalcade O’er windy hill, through clogged ravine, And woodland paths that wound between Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed. From every barn a team afoot, At every house a new recruit, Where, drawn by Nature’s subtlest law, Haply the watchful young men saw Sweet doorway pictures of the curls And curious eyes of merry girls, Lifting their hands in mock defence Against the snow-ball’s compliments, And reading in each missive tost The charm with Eden never lost. We heard once more the sleigh-bells’ sound; And, following where the teamsters led, The wise old Doctor went his round, Just pausing at our door to say, In the brief autocratic way Of one who, prompt at Duty’s call, Was free to urge her claim on all, That some poor neighbor sick abed At night our mother’s aid would need. For, one in generous thought and deed, What mattered in the sufferer’s sight The Quaker matron’s inward light, The Doctor’s mail of Calvin’s creed? All hearts confess the saints elect Who, twain in faith, in love agree, And melt not in an acid sect The Christian pearl of charity! So days went on: a week had passed Since the great world was heard from last. The Almanac we studied o’er, Read and reread our little store Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score; One harmless novel, mostly hid From younger eyes, a book forbid, And poetry, (or good or bad, A single book was all we had,) Where Ellwood’s meek, drab-skirted Muse, A stranger to the heathen Nine, Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, The wars of David and the Jews. At last the floundering carrier bore The village paper to our door. Lo! broadening outward as we read, To warmer zones the horizon spread In panoramic length unrolled We saw the marvels that it told. Before us passed the painted Creeks, And daft McGregor on his raids In Costa Rica’s everglades. And up Taygetos winding slow Rode Ypsilanti’s Mainote Greeks, A Turk’s head at each saddle-bow! Welcome to us its week-old news, Its corner for the rustic Muse, Its monthly gauge of snow and rain, Its record, mingling in a breath The wedding bell and dirge of death: Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale, The latest culprit sent to jail; Its hue and cry of stolen and lost, Its vendue sales and goods at cost, And traffic calling loud for gain. We felt the stir of hall and street, The pulse of life that round us beat; The chill embargo of the snow Was melted in the genial glow; Wide swung again our ice-locked door, And all the world was ours once more! Clasp, Angel of the backword look And folded wings of ashen gray And voice of echoes far away, The brazen covers of thy book; The weird palimpsest old and vast, Wherein thou hid’st the spectral past; Where, closely mingling, pale and glow The characters of joy and woe; The monographs of outlived years, Or smile-illumed or dim with tears, Green hills of life that slope to death, And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees Shade off to mournful cypresses With the white amaranths underneath. Even while I look, I can but heed The restless sands’ incessant fall, Importunate hours that hours succeed, Each clamorous with its own sharp need, And duty keeping pace with all. Shut down and clasp with heavy lids; I hear again the voice that bids The dreamer leave his dream midway For larger hopes and graver fears: Life greatens in these later years, The century’s aloe flowers to-day! Yet, haply, in some lull of life, Some Truce of God which breaks its strife, The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew, Dreaming in throngful city ways Of winter joys his boyhood knew; And dear and early friends—the few Who yet remain—shall pause to view These Flemish pictures of old days; Sit with me by the homestead hearth, And stretch the hands of memory forth To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze! And thanks untraced to lips unknown Shall greet me like the odors blown From unseen meadows newly mown, Or lilies floating in some pond, Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond; The traveller owns the grateful sense Of sweetness near, he knows not whence, And, pausing, takes with forehead bare The benediction of the air.