English

Once of a mazy afternoon, beside that southern sea,
I watched a shoal of sunny beams come swimming close to me.
Each was a whited candle-flamelet, flickering in air;
Each was a silver daffodil astonied to be there;
Each was a diving summer star, its brightness come to lave;
And each a little naked spirit leaping on the wave.

And while I sat, and while I dreamed, beside that summer sea,
There came the fairest thought of all that ever came to me;
The tiny lives of tiny men, no more they seemed to mean

The smiling sea
And dunes and sky
Dream; and the bee
Goes dreaming by.

In heaven's field
Moon's scimitar
Is drawn to shield
One dreaming star.

The dreaming flowers
And lovers nod.
Serene these hours —
Serene is God.

Beauty is not a set and flawless rule;
She spells the mist, and with a silver wing
Hovers upon the shades of grey and brown
No less than on a rich embroidery.
She is a kind of rhythm, an accord
Of dreaming notes, so vague and mystical
That on a breath irrelevant, they fade.

She subtly whispers her imaginings,
And hath a tender breath more delicate
Than far-blown scent of gorse on distant hills.
If we but catch the glimmer of her wing,
Then witchery! We needs must follow her!...

Love!—that love which comes so stealthily,
And takes us up, and twists us as it will—
What fever'd hours of agony 'twill bring!
How oft we wake and cry: “God set me free
Of love—to never love again!” And still
We fall, and clutch it by the knees, and cling
And press our lips—and so, once more are glad!

And if it go, or if it never come,
Through what a grieving wilderness of pain
We travel on! In prisons stripped of light
We blindly grope, and wander without home.
The friendless winds that sweep across the plain—

We traveled through the soundless night
And breathed the fragrant June,
Tumultous fragrance, flooded bright
With an unwaning moon;
Till from the whitened field the wood
Rose dark along the hill, —
And there with sudden joy we stood
To hear thee, whip-poor-will!

O Bird, O Wonder! Long and high
Thy measured question calls!
I marvel, till thy perfect cry
Almost too perfect falls.

What art thou singing, voice divine,
Heart of the poignant night?
What utter loveliness is thine,

This is my attic room. Sit down, my friend.
My swallow's nest is high and hard to gain;
The stairs are long and steep; but at the end
The rest repays the pain.

For here are peace and freedom; room for speech
Or silence, as may suit a changeful mood:
Society's hard by-laws do not reach
This lofty altitude.

You hapless dwellers in the lower rooms
See only bricks and sand and windowed walls;
But here, above the dust and smoky glooms,
Heaven's light unhindered falls.

I

Easter in the Pelham hills — Easter late, as Pelham likes —
Northern boughs need time enough to sprout their tardy cones and spikes!
Checkered squares of shimmering green promise faintly, one by one,
Where the orchards, long besieged, surrender to the ardent sun.
From dawn till eve the promise ripens, changing tints from noon to noon,
And through the mist of breathing things nightly climbs the Paschal moon.
Oh, were you now in Amherst, it's walking you'd be now

Down on the lake where the waters sleep
In a trance of leafy gloom,
Rocked ceaselessly by the lulling swell,
In an endless waste of bloom,
The fair white lilies, the bride-like lilies,
Unbosom their rich perfume.

O lovingly, after the stars go out,
And the silent night is done,
When their morning choruses dear and sweet
The wood-birds have begun,
The fond white lilies, the bride-like lilies,
Look up to their lord, the sun.

And a spell like that which the lotus owns,
Steals over the charmed air,

AND WHAT WOULD COME OF MEDDLING WITH IT .

'Oorah, neighbors! vot do yer say—
'Ere's a chimney afire across the vay!
It 'asn't been burnt this many a day—
 And there can't be no manner of doubt
But the flues is choked vith soot and vith dirt—
Let's hall turn to, in veskit and shirt,
Vith 'and-pump and hengine, basin and squirt,
(Hanything as will swash or spirt)
 And see if we can't put it hout!

'Tis a heasy business, I'll be bail—
So form your line, vith bucket and pail,

Let us go up to Wildwood,
Haven on the starry hill,
Where one by one beneath their names
Men we knew lie still;
Still as the shadows touch them
And the west pales from its red;
Still in the fresh September night
The mist creeps on the dead.
Grey mist and green earth-cover
Between the dead and the skies,
Or the sunset on their cheek would blush,
The dawn would light their eyes;
Half to the east are sentinel,
Half are a watch in the west;
And the trees stand above them all,
Rooted deep in rest.