Poems Chiefly from Manuscript Part 16

_Evening Primrose_

When once the sun sinks in the west, And dew-drops pearl the evening's breast; Almost as pale as moonbeams are, Or its companionable star, The evening primrose opes anew Its delicate blossoms to the dew; And, shunning-hermit of the light, Wastes its fair bloom upon the night; Who, blindfold to its fond caresses, Knows not the beauty he possesses.

Thus it blooms on till night is bye And day looks out with open eye, Abashed at the gaze it cannot shun, It faints and withers, and is done.

_The Shepherd's Tree_

Huge elm, with rifted trunk all notched and scarred, Like to a warrior's destiny! I love To stretch me often on thy shadowed sward, And hear the laugh of summer leaves above; Or on thy b.u.t.tressed roots to sit, and lean In careless att.i.tude, and there reflect On times, and deeds, and darings that have been-- Old castaways, now swallowed in neglect; While thou art towering in thy strength of heart, Stirring the soul to vain imaginings, In which life's sordid being hath no part.

The wind of that eternal ditty sings, Humming of future things, that burn the mind To leave some fragment of itself behind.

_Wild Bees_

These children of the sun which summer brings As pastoral minstrels in her merry train Pipe rustic ballads upon busy wings And glad the cotters' quiet toils again.

The white-nosed bee that bores its little hole In mortared walls and pipes its symphonies, And never absent couzen, black as coal, That Indian-like bepaints its little thighs, With white and red bedight for holiday, Right earlily a-morn do pipe and play And with their legs stroke slumber from their eyes.

And aye so fond they of their singing seem That in their holes abed at close of day They still keep piping in their honey dreams, And larger ones that thrum on ruder pipe Round the sweet smelling closen and rich woods Where tawny white and red flush clover buds Shine bonnily and bean fields blossom ripe, Shed dainty perfumes and give honey food To these sweet poets of the summer fields; Me much delighting as I stroll along The narrow path that hay laid meadow yields, Catching the windings of their wandering song.

The black and yellow b.u.mble first on wing To buzz among the sallow's early flowers, Hiding its nest in holes from fickle spring Who stints his rambles with her frequent showers; And one that may for wiser piper pa.s.s, In livery dress half sables and half red, Who laps a moss ball in the meadow gra.s.s And h.o.a.rds her stores when April showers have fled; And russet commoner who knows the face Of every blossom that the meadow brings, Starting the traveller to a quicker pace By threatening round his head in many rings: These sweeten summer in their happy glee By giving for her honey melody.

_The Firetail's Nest_

"Tweet" pipes the robin as the cat creeps by Her nestling young that in the elderns lie, And then the bluecap tootles in its glee, Picking the flies from orchard apple tree, And "pink" the chaffinch cries its well-known strain, Urging its kind to utter "pink" again, While in a quiet mood hedgesparrows try An inward stir of shadowed melody.

Around the rotten tree the firetail mourns As the old hedger to his toil returns, Chopping the grain to stop the gap close by The hole where her blue eggs in safety lie.

Of everything that stirs she dreameth wrong And pipes her "tweet tut" fears the whole day long.

_The Fear of Flowers_

The nodding oxeye bends before the wind, The woodbine quakes lest boys their flowers should find, And p.r.i.c.kly dogrose spite of its array Can't dare the blossom-seeking hand away, While thistles wear their heavy k.n.o.bs of bloom Proud as a warhorse wears its haughty plume, And by the roadside danger's self defy; On commons where pined sheep and oxen lie In ruddy pomp and ever thronging mood It stands and spreads like danger in a wood, And in the village street where meanest weeds Can't stand untouched to fill their husks with seeds, The haughty thistle oer all danger towers, In every place the very wasp of flowers.

_Summer Evening_

The frog half fearful jumps across the path, And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath; My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive, Till past,--and then the cricket sings more strong, And gra.s.shoppers in merry moods still wear The short night weary with their fretting song.

Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare, Cheat of his chosen bed, and from the bank The yellowhammer flutters in short fears From off its nest hid in the gra.s.ses rank, And drops again when no more noise it hears.

Thus nature's human link and endless thrall, Proud man, still seems the enemy of all.

_Emmonsail's Heath in Winter_

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 his melancholy wing, And oddling crow in idle motions swing On the half rotten ashtree's topmost twig, Beside whose trunk the gipsy makes his bed.

Up flies the bouncing woodc.o.c.k from the brig Where a black quagmire quakes beneath the tread, The fieldfares chatter in the whistling thorn And for the awe round fields and closen rove, And coy b.u.mbarrels twenty in a drove Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain And hang on little twigs and start again.

_Pleasures of Fancy_

A path, old tree, goes by thee crooking on, And through this little gate that claps and bangs Against thy rifted trunk, what steps hath gone?

Though but a lonely way, yet mystery hangs Oer crowds of pastoral scenes recordless here.

The boy might climb the nest in thy young boughs That's slept half an eternity; in fear The herdsman may have left his startled cows For shelter when heaven's thunder voice was near; Here too the woodman on his wallet laid For pillow may have slept an hour away; And poet pastoral, lover of the shade, Here sat and mused half some long summer day While some old shepherd listened to the lay.

_To Napoleon_

The heroes of the present and the past Were puny, vague, and nothingness to thee: Thou didst a span grasp mighty to the last, And strain for glory when thy die was cast.

That little island, on the Atlantic sea, Was but a dust-spot in a lake: thy mind Swept s.p.a.ce as sh.o.r.eless as eternity.

Thy giant powers outstript this gaudy age Of heroes; and, as looking at the sun, So gazing on thy greatness, made men blind To merits, that had adoration won In olden times. The world was on thy page Of victories but a comma. Fame could find No parallel, thy greatness to presage.

_The Skylark_

Above the russet clods the corn is seen Sprouting its spiry points of tender green, Where squats the hare, to terrors wide awake, Like some brown clod the harrows failed to break.

Opening their golden caskets to the sun, The b.u.t.tercups make schoolboys eager run, To see who shall be first to pluck the prize-- Up from their hurry see the Skylark flies, And oer her half-formed nest, with happy wings, Winnows the air till in the cloud she sings, Then hangs a dust spot in the sunny skies, And drops and drops till in her nest she lies, Which they unheeded pa.s.sed--not dreaming then That birds, which flew so high, would drop again To nests upon the ground, which anything May come at to destroy. Had they the wing Like such a bird, themselves would be too proud And build on nothing but a pa.s.sing cloud!

As free from danger as the heavens are free From pain and toil, there would they build and be, And sail about the world to scenes unheard Of and unseen,--O were they but a bird!

So think they, while they listen to its song, And smile and fancy and so pa.s.s along; While its low nest, moist with the dews of morn, Lies safely, with the leveret, in the corn.

_The Flood_

Waves trough, rebound, and furious boil again, Like plunging monsters rising underneath, Who at the top curl up a s.h.a.ggy mane, A moment catching at a surer breath, Then plunging headlong down and down, and on Each following whirls the shadow of the last; And other monsters rise when those are gone, Crest their fringed waves, plunge onward and are past.

The chill air comes around me oceanly, From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread; Strange birds like snowspots oer the whizzing sea Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled.

On roars the flood, all restless to be free, Like Trouble wandering to Eternity.

_The Thrush's Nest_

Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush, That overhung a molehill large and round, I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound With joy; and, often an intruding guest, I watched her secret toils from day to day-- How true she warped the moss, to form a nest, And modelled it within with wood and clay; And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers, Ink-spotted-over sh.e.l.ls of greeny blue; And there I witnessed in the sunny hours A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as that sunshine and the laughing sky.

_November_

Sybil of months, and worshipper of winds, I love thee, rude and boisterous as thou art; And sc.r.a.ps of joy my wandering ever finds Mid thy uproarious madness--when the start Of sudden tempests stirs the forest leaves Into hoa.r.s.e fury, till the shower set free Stills the huge swells. Then ebb the mighty heaves, That sway the forest like a troubled sea.

I love thy wizard noise, and rave in turn Half-vacant thoughts and rhymes of careless form; Then hide me from the shower, a short sojourn, Neath ivied oak; and mutter to the storm, Wishing its melody belonged to me, That I might breathe a living song to thee.

_Earth's Eternity_

Man, Earth's poor shadow! talks of Earth's decay: But hath it nothing of eternal kin?

No majesty that shall not pa.s.s away?

No soul of greatness springing up within?

Thought marks without h.o.a.r shadows of sublime, Pictures of power, which if not doomed to win Eternity, stand laughing at old Time For ages: in the grand ancestral line Of things eternal, mounting to divine, I read Magnificence where ages pay Worship like conquered foes to the Apennine, Because they could not conquer. There sits Day Too high for Night to come at--mountains shine, Outpeering Time, too lofty for decay.

_Autumn_

Autumn comes laden with her ripened load Of fruitage and so scatters them abroad That each fern-smothered heath and mole-hill waste Are black with bramble berries--where in haste The chubby urchins from the village hie To feast them there, stained with the purple dye; While painted woods around my rambles be In draperies worthy of eternity.

Yet will the leaves soon patter on the ground, And death's deaf voice awake at every sound: One drops--then others--and the last that fell Rings for those left behind their pa.s.sing bell.

Thus memory every where her tidings brings How sad death robs us of life's dearest things.

_Signs of Winter_