EARLY SUMMER
_The cricket in the rose-bush hedge
Sings by the vine-entangled gate;
The slim moon slants a timid edge
Of pearl through one low cloud of slate;
Around dark door and window-ledge
Like dreams the shadows wait.
And through the summer dusk she goes,
On her white breast a crimson rose._
1
_She delays, meditating. A rainy afternoon._
Gray skies and the foggy rain
Dripping from sullen eaves;
Over and over again
Dull drop of the trickling leaves;
And the woodward-winding lane,
And the hill with its shocks of sheaves
One scarce perceives.
Shall I go in such wet weather
By the lane or over the hill?--
Where the blossoming milkweed's feather
The drops like diamonds fill;
Where, draggled and drenched together,
The ox-eyes rank the rill,
To the old corn-mill.
The creek by now is swollen,
And its foaming cascades sound;
And the lilies, smeared with pollen,
In the dam look dull and drowned.
'Tis a path I oft have stolen
To the bridge that rambles round
With willows bound.
Through a valley wild with berry,
Packed thick with the iron-weeds,
And elder,--washed and very
Fragrant,--the fenced path leads;
Past oak and wilding cherry
To a place of flags and reeds,
That the water bredes.
The sun through the sad sky bleaches--
Is that a thrush that calls?
That bird who so beseeches?
And see! on the balsam's balls,
And leaves of the water-beeches--
One blister of wart-like galls--
No raindrop falls.
My shawl instead of a bonnet!...
Though the woods be soaking yet,
Through the wet to the rock I'll run it,--
How sweet to meet i' the wet!
Our rock with the vine upon it,--
Each flower a fiery jet--
Where oft we've met!
2
_They meet. He speaks._
How fresh the purple clover
Smells in its veil of rain!
And where the leaves brim over
How fragrant is the lane!
See, how the sodden acres,
Forlorn of all their rakers,
Their hay and harvest makers,
Look green as spring again.
Drops from the trumpet flowers
Rain on us as we pass;
And every zephyr showers,
From tilted leaf or grass,
Clear beads of moisture, seeming
Pale, pointed emeralds gleaming;
Where, through the green boughs streaming,
The daylight strikes like glass.
_She speaks._
How dewy, clean and fragrant
Look now the green and gold!--
And breezes trailing vagrant
Spill all the spice they hold.
The west begins to glimmer;
And shadows, stretching slimmer,
Crouch on the ways; and dimmer
Grow field and forest old.
Beyond those rainy reaches
Of woodland, far and lone,
A whippoorwill beseeches;
And now an owl's vague moan
Strikes faint upon the hearing.--
These say the dusk is nearing.
And, see, the heavens clearing
Take on a tender tone.
How feebly chirps the cricket!
How thin the tree-toads cry!
Blurred in the wild-rose thicket
Gleams wet the firefly.--
This way toward home is nearest;
Of weeds and briars clearest....
We'll meet to-morrow, dearest;
Till then, dear heart, good-bye.
3
_They meet again under the greenwood tree. He speaks:_
Here at last! And do you know
That again you've kept me waiting?
Wondering, anticipating,
If your "yes" meant "no."
Now you're here we'll have our day....
Let us take this daisied hollow,
And beneath these beeches follow
This wild strip of way
Towards the stream; wherein are seen
Stealing gar and darting minnow;
Over which snake-feeders winnow
Wings of black and green.
Like a cactus flames the sun;
And the mighty weaver, Even,
Tenuous colored, there in heaven,
His rich weft's begun....
How I love you! from the time--
You remember, do you not?--
When, within your orchard-plot,
I was reading rhyme,
As I told you. And 'twas thus--
"By the blue Trinacrian sea,
Far in pastoral Sicily
With Theocritus"--
That I answered you who asked.
But the curious part was this:--
That the whole thing was amiss;
That the Greek but masked
Tales of old Boccaccio--
Tall Decameronian maids
Strolled among Italian glades,
Smiling, sweet and slow.
And when you approached,--my book
Dropped in wonder,--seemingly
To myself I said, "'Tis she!"
And arose to look
In Lauretta's eyes and--true!
Found them yours.--You shook your head,
Laughing at me, as you said,
"Did I frighten you?"
You had come for cherries; these
Dreamily I climbed for while
You still questioned with a smile,
And still tried to tease.
Ah, love, just two years have gone
Since then. I remember, you
Wore a dress of billowy blue
Muslin, or of lawn.
And that apron still I see,--
White, with cherry-juice red-stained,--
Which you held; wherein I rained
Ripeness from the tree.
And I asked you--for, you know,
To my eyes your serious eyes
Spoke such sweet philosophies,--
If you'd read Rousseau.
You remember how a chance,
Somewhat like to mine, one June
Happened him at castle Toune,
Over there in France?
And a cherry dropping fair
On your cheek I, envying it,
Said--remembering Rousseau's wit--
"Would my lips were there!"
How you laughed and blushed, I know.--
Here's the stream. The west has narrowed
To a streak of gold, deep arrowed.--
There's a skiff. Let's row.
4
_Entering the skiff, she speaks:_
Waters, flowing dark and bright
In the sunlight or the moon,
Seize my soul with such delight
As a visible music might;
As some slow, majestic tune
Made material to the sight.
Blossoms colored like the skies,
Sunset-hued and tame or wild,
Fill my soul with such surmise
As the mind might realize
If our thoughts, all undefiled,
Should take form before our eyes.
So to me do these appeal;
So they sway me every hour:
Letting all their beauty steal
On my soul to make it feel,
Through a rivulet or flower,
More than any words reveal.
5
_He speaks, rowing._
See, sweetheart, how the lilies lay
Their lambent leaves about our way;
Or, pollen-dusty, nod and float
Their moon-like flowers around our boat.--
The middle of the stream we've reached
Three strokes from where our boat was beached.
Look up. You scarce can see the sky,
Through trees that lean, dark, deep, and high;
And coiled with grape and trailing vine
Build a vast roof of shade and shine;
A house of leaves, where shadows walk,
And whispering winds and waters talk.
There is no path. The saplings choke
The trunks they spring from. There an oak
Lies rotting; and that sycamore,
Which lays its bulk from shore to shore,--
Uprooted by the floods,--perchance,
May be the bridge to some romance.
Now opening through a willow fringe
The waters creep, one tawny tinge
Of sunset; and on either marge
The cottonwoods make walls of shade;
And, near, the gradual hills loom large
Within its mirror. Herons wade,
Or fly, like Faery birds, from grass
That mats the shore by which we pass.
_She speaks._
On we pass; we rippling pass,
On sunset waters still as glass.
A vesper-sparrow flies above
Soft twittering to its woodland love.
A whippoorwill now calls afar;
And 'gainst the west, like some swift star,
A glittering jay flies screaming. Slim
The sand-snipes and king-fishers skim
Before us; and some evening thrush--
Who may discover where such sing?--
The silence rinses with a gush
Of mellow music bubbling.
_He speaks._
On we pass.--Now let us oar
To yonder strip of ragged shore,
Where, from a rock with lichens hoar,
A ferny spring wells. Gliding by
The sulphur-colored firefly
Lights its pale lamp where mallows gloom,
And wild-bean and wild-mustard bloom.--
Some hunter there within the woods
Last fall encamped those ashes say
And campfire boughs.--The solitudes
Grow dreamy with the death of day.
6
_She sings._
Over the fields of millet
A young bird tries its wings;
And sweet as a woodland rillet,
Its first wild music rings--
Soul of my soul, where the meadows roll
What is the song it sings?
"Love, and a glad good-morrow,
Heart where the rapture is!
Good-morrow, good-morrow!
Adieu to sorrow!
Here is the road to bliss:
Where all day long you may hearken my song,
And kiss, kiss, kiss!"
Over the fields of clover,
Where the wild bee drones and sways,
The wind, like a shepherd lover,
Flutes on the fragrant ways--
Heart of my heart, where the blossoms part,
What is the air he plays?
"Love, and a song to follow,
Soul with the face a-gleam!
Come follow, come follow,
O'er hill and o'er hollow,
To the land o' the bloom and beam;
Where under the flowers you may listen for hours,
And dream, dream, dream!"
7
_He speaks, letting the boat drift._
Here the shores are irised. Grasses
Clump the water dark that glasses
Broken wood and deepened distance.
Far the musical persistence
Of a field-lark lingers low
In the west where tulips blow.
White before us flames one pointed
Star; and Day hath Night anointed
King; from out her azure ewer
Pouring starry fire, truer
Than pure gold. Star-crowned he stands
With the star-light in his hands.
Will the moon bleach through the ragged
Tree-tops ere we reach yon jagged
Rock, that rises gradually,
Pharos of our homeward valley?--
All the west is smouldering red;
Embers are the stars o'erhead.
At my soul some Protean elf is;
You're Simaetha; I am Delphis.
You are Sappho and your Phaon,
I.--We love.--There lies a ray on
All the Dark AEolian seas
'Round the violet Lesbian leas.
On we drift. I love you. Nearer
Looms our island. Rosier, clearer,
The Leucadian cliff we follow,
Where the temple of Apollo
Shines--a pale and pillared fire....
Strike, oh, strike the Lydian lyre!--
While in Hellas still we seem,
Let us sing of that we dream.
8
_Landing, he sings._
Night, night, 'tis night. The moon drifts low above us,
And all its gold is tangled in the stream:
Love, love, my love, and all the stars, that love us,
The stars smile down and every star's a dream.
In odorous purple, where the falling warble
Of water cascades and the plunged foam glows,
A columned ruin lifts its sculptured marble
Friezed with the chiselled rebeck and the rose.
_She sings._
Sleep, Sleep, sweet Sleep sleeps at the drifting tiller,
And in our sail the Spirit of the Rain--
Love, love, my love, ah, bid thy heart be stiller,
And, hark! the music of the resonant main.
What flowers are those that blow their balm unto us
From mouths of wild aroma, each a flame?--
That breathe of love, of love we know that drew us,
That kissed our eyes, so we might see the same.
_He speaks._
Night, night, 'tis night!--no dream is this to banish;
The temple and the nightingale _are_ there!
Our love has made them, nevermore to vanish,
Real as yon moon, this wild-rose in your hair.
Night, night, 'tis night!--and love's own star's before us,
Its bright reflection in the starry stream--
Yes, yes, ah, yes! its presence shall watch o'er us,
Night, night, to-night, and every night we dream.
9
_Homeward through flowers; she speaks:_
Behold the offerings of the common hills!
Whose lowly names have made them three times dear:
The evening-primrose and dim multitudes
Of violets that sky the mossy dells
With heaven's ambrosial blue; dew-dripping plumes
Of mauve lobelias; and the red-stained cups
Of blackberry-lilies all along the creek,
Where, lulled, the freckled silence sleeps, and vague
The water flows; where, at high noon, the cows
Wade knee-deep, and the heat is honied with
The drone of drowsy bees. The fleur-de-lis,
Blue, streaked with crystal like a summer day,
The monkey-flower and the touch-me-not,
All frailly scented and familiar as
Fair baby faces and soft infant eyes.
Simple suggestions of a life most fair!
You whisper me of love and untaught faith,
Whose habitation is within the soul,
Not of the Earth, yet for the Earth indeed....
What is it halcyons my heart? makes calm,
With calmness not of wisdom, all my soul
To-night?--Is't love? or faith? or both?--
The lore of all the world is less than these
Simple suggestions of a life most fair,
And love most sweet; that I have learned to know!
10
_He speaks, musingly._
Yes, I have known its being so;
Long ago was I seeing so--
Beckoning on to a fairer land,
Out of the flowers it waved its hand;
Bidding me on to life and love;
Life with the hope of the love thereof.
What is the value of knowing it,
If you are shy in showing it?--
Need of the earth unfolds the flower,
Dewy sweet at the proper hour;
And in the world of the human heart
Love is the flower's counterpart.
So when the soul is heedable,
Then is the heart made readable--
I in the book of your heart have read
Words that are truer than truth has said;
Measures of love, the spirit's song,
Writ of your soul to haunt me long.
Love can hear each laudable
Thought of the loved made audible,
Spoken in wonder, or bliss, or pain,
And re-echo it back again;
Ever responsive, ever awake,
Ever replying with ache for ache.
11
_She speaks, dreamily._
Earth gives its flowers to us
And heaven its stars. Indeed,
These are as lips that woo us,
Those are as lights that lead,
With love that doth pursue us,
With hope that still doth speed.
Yet shall the flowers lie riven,
And lips forget to kiss;
The stars fade out of heaven,
And lights lead us amiss--
As love for which we've striven;
As hope that promises.
12
_He laughs, wishing to dispel her seriousness:_
If love I have had of you, you had of me,
Then doubtless our loving were over;
One would be less than the other, you see;
Since what you returned to your lover
Were only his own; and--
13
_She interrupts him, speaking impetuously:_
But if I lose you, if you part with me,
I will not love you less
Loving so much now. If there is to be
A parting and distress,--
What will avail to comfort or reprieve
The soul that's anguished most?--
The knowledge that it once possessed, perceive,
The love that it has lost.
You must acknowledge, under sun and moon
All that we feel is old;
Let morning flutter from night's brown cocoon
Wide wings of flaxen gold;
The moon split through the darkness, soaring o'er,
Like some great moth and white,
These have been seen a myriad times before
And with the same delight.--
So 'tis with love--how old yet new it is!--
This only should we heed,--
To once have known, to once have felt love's bliss,
Is to be rich indeed.--
Whether we win or lose, we lose or win,
Within our gain or loss
Some purpose lies, some end unseen of sin,
Beyond our crown or cross.
14
_Nearing home, he speaks._
True, true!--Perhaps it would be best
To be that star within the west;
Above the earth, within the skies,
Yet shining in your own blue eyes.
Or, haply, better here to blow
A flower beneath your window low;
That, brief of life and frail and fair,
Finds yet a heaven in your hair.
Or well, perhaps, to be the breeze
That sighs its soul out to the trees;
A voice, a breath of rain or drouth,
That has its wild will with your mouth.
These thing I long to be. I long
To be the burthen of some song
You love to sing; a melody,
Sure of sweet immortality.
15
_At the gate. She speaks._
Sunday shall we ride together?--
Not the root-rough, rambling way
Through the wood we went that day,
In last summer's sultry weather.
Past the Methodist camp-meeting,
Where religion helped the hymn
Gather volume; and a slim
Minister, with textful greeting
Welcomed us and still expounded.--
From the service on the hill
We had gone three hills and still
Very near the singing sounded.
Nor that road through weed and berry
Drowsy days led me and you
To the old-time barbecue,
Where the country-side made merry.
Dusty vehicles together;
Darkies with the horses near
Tied to trees; the atmosphere
Redolent of bark and leather.
As we went the homeward journey
You exclaimed,--"They intermix
Pleasure there with politics.
It reminds me of a tourney."
And the fiddles!--through the thickets,
How the wind brought from the hill
Remnants of the old quadrille!--
It was like the drone of crickets....
Neither road. The shady quiet
Of that path by beech and birch,
Winding to the ruined church
Near the stream that sparkles by it.
Where the silent Sundays listen
For the preacher--Love--we bring
In our hearts to preach and sing
Week-day shade to Sabbath glisten.
16
_He, at parting:_
Yes, to-morrow. Early morn.--
When the House of Day uncloses
Portals that the stars adorn,--
Whence Light's golden presence throws his
Fiery lilies, burning roses
On the world,--how good to ride
With one's sweetheart at one's side!
So to-morrow we will ride
To the wood's cathedral places;
Where the prayer-like wildflowers hide,
Sweet religion in their faces;
Where, in truest, untaught phrases,
Worship in each rhythmic word,
God is praised by many a bird.
Look above you.--Pearly white,
Star on star now crystallizes
Out of darkness; and the night
Hangs them round her like devices
Of strange jewels. Vapour rises,
Glimmering, from each wood and dell--
Till to-morrow, then, farewell.