Golden Numbers Part 13

Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.

The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?

Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.

The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold, November rain, Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchids died amid the summer glow; But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm, mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

[Footnote 9: _By courtesy of D. Appleton & Co., publishers of Bryant's Complete Poetical Works._]

_Autumn's Mirth_

'Tis all a myth that Autumn grieves, For, watch the rain among the leaves; With silver fingers dimly seen It makes each leaf a tambourine, And swings and leaps with elfin mirth To kiss the brow of mother earth; Or, laughing 'mid the trembling gra.s.s, It nods a greeting as you pa.s.s.

Oh! hear the rain amid the leaves, 'Tis all a myth that Autumn grieves!

'Tis all a myth that Autumn grieves, For, list the wind among the sheaves; Far sweeter than the breath of May, Or storied scents of old Cathay, It blends the perfumes rare and good Of spicy pine and hickory wood And with a voice in gayest chime, It prates of rifled mint and thyme.

Oh! scent the wind among the sheaves, 'Tis all a myth that Autumn grieves!

'Tis all a myth that Autumn grieves, Behold the wondrous web she weaves!

By viewless hands her thread is spun Of evening vapors shyly won.

Across the gra.s.s from side to side A myriad unseen shuttles glide Throughout the night, till on the height Aurora leads the laggard light.

Behold the wondrous web she weaves, 'Tis all a myth that Autumn grieves!

SAMUEL MINTURN PECK.

INTERLEAVES

_On the Wing_

Our "little brothers of the air," have you named them all without a gun, as Emerson asks in "Forbearance"? Shy, glancing eyes peer from nests half-hidden in leaves; the forest is vocal with melody, the air is tremulous with the whirr of tiny wings.

Poet-singers have written undying lines about their brother minstrels of the wood, and the "blithe lark," especially, has a proud place in poetry, apostrophized as he is by Shakespeare, Sh.e.l.ley, Frederick Tennyson, Wordsworth, and The Ettrick Shepherd.

As the skylark's note dies away we hear the saucy chatter of Cranch's Bobolink, the twitter of Keats's Goldfinches, the mournful cry of Celia Thaxter's Sandpiper, and the revolving wheel of Emily d.i.c.kinson's Humming-bird, with its resonance of emerald, its rush of cochineal. The feathered warblers, Robin, Bluebird, Swallow, speed their southern flight, but there are other songs of summer, voices of sweet and tiny cousins, heard at the lazy noontide; chirpings, rustlings of the green little vaulters in the sunny gra.s.s. And if the wee gra.s.shoppers and those warm little housekeepers the crickets, have served as themes for Keats and Leigh Hunt, so has the humble bee provoked his tribute from the poets:

"_His feet are shod with gauze, His helmet is of gold; His breast a single onyx With chrysophrase inlaid._"

Come within earshot of his drowsy hum, his breezy ba.s.s,--Father Tabb's publican bee,

"_Collecting the tax On honey and wax,_"

or Emerson's yellow-breeched philosopher,

"_Seeing only what is fair, Sipping only what is sweet._"

IV

ON THE WING

_Sing On, Blithe Bird!_

I've plucked the berry from the bush, the brown nut from the tree, But heart of happy little bird ne'er broken was by me.

I saw them in their curious nests, close couching, slyly peer With their wild eyes, like glittering beads, to note if harm were near; I pa.s.sed them by, and blessed them all; I felt that it was good To leave unmoved the creatures small whose home was in the wood.

And here, even now, above my head, a l.u.s.ty rogue doth sing; He pecks his swelling breast and neck, and trims his little wing.

He will not fly; he knows full well, while chirping on that spray, I would not harm him for a world, or interrupt his lay.

Sing on, sing on, blithe bird! and fill my heart with summer gladness; It has been aching many a day with measures full of sadness!

WILLIAM MOTHERWELL.

_To a Skylark_

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert-- That from heaven or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden light'ning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run, Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven In the broad daylight, Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight--

Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel, that it is there.

All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.

What thou art we know not; What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:--

Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and gra.s.s which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embow'red By its own green leaves, By warm winds deflow'red, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.