(To Mrs. A. W. W.)
_First Evening_
A path of trembling gold, from where I stand,
Across the limpid lake, to darkling woods,
Upon the far off strand,
Where evening’s glory broods,
Until it changes into rose,
A livid pink, suffusing all,
The mighty water’s deep repose;
And as the fiery ball
Drops into clouds on the horizon’s rim,
The hue, most delicate, takes on a crimson glow,
In which the shadows of the shore grow dim,
And slowly all things into darkness flow;
Anon the moon appears and clothes the scene
And floating mist-veil into languid sheen.
_Second Evening_
A sea of fire in which a sky
Of lavender and blue and red
Together with the clouds of changing dye
Reflected are--divinely wed;
And we, who rove about, are led
By an illusion, such as seldom seen:
A strange receding of the deep,
As if we sat above a waterfall,
O’er which our skiff full soon must leap
Into immensity, bright, hyaline,
Where brooding spirits beck and call.
A glorious view is heaven in the depth
Of tranquil seas, but more
Its virtues, mirrored in a human heart;
And thou, who hast its kindnesses so kept,
That changing vistas or receding shore
Can not extinguish life’s immortal part
In the abiding love divine, as clear
As all this evening glory in a glassy mere,
Art more than all what nature can express,
Whose word can cheer, whose gentle hand can bless.
Illusions!--much is but illusions:
Fear, and all the ghosts that troop with it.
The good alone, in all its sweet effusion,
Is real as the sun, by which the world is lit;
The cataract of death, the dread abyss--
Does not exist, for all the light is His.
_Third Evening_
To-night the rising storm-clouds hide
The sun’s departure from our gaze;
A heavy mist begins to glide
Across the water’s ashen face;
A host of swallows, circling, fly
Like cavalcades upon a plain;
A myriad of insects die,
Uncounted lives, like drops of rain
Lost in the sea, lost in the All,
The life, the death, the Oversoul.
And little children laugh and play
Upon the beach, and on the pier,
In them the closing of the day,
With gathering storm, awakes no fear,
For in their souls the light remains,
That oped the water-lily’s breast,
And woke the warbler’s glad refrain,
And all the heart of nature blest;
What matters though the clouds obscure
Its finished course one single eve,
If we, like children, can allure
Even clouds and mist to pleasure give.
_Fourth Evening_
The glitt’ring wavelets blind my sight,
And neath the hand I needs must scan
The dazzling shimmer of the light,
Which like Seraphic highways span
The breeze-swept, glad expanse;
Methinks I see the Naiads dance
To music of the swaying reeds
And rushes, where the narrows jut,
Adorned with many-colored weeds,
From Neptune’s gardens freshly cut.
Amid the glimmer one discerns
A boat wherein a youth doth stand,
Like Hiawatha’s passing, turn
Its prow with dreamy ease from land,
The well nigh naked youth to me
Is like a god of Grecian mould,
Whose perfect form and symmetry
Is like Apollo’s of old;
He speaks to fellows in the deep,
Whose heads move ’mid the curling gleams,
Alas, that death should ever reap
Among such scenes of pleasant dreams!
But nature always clamors for
What she hath lent to life a while,
And though we borrow more and more,
And all her powers do beguile,
Yet comes the hour on land or sea,
She asks for all with usury.
The boy lifts up his hands and dives,
A pleasant plunge that has no dread,
But I recall some precious lives,
Which thus were reckoned ’mongst the dead,
And in my heart, at end of day,
A prayer for the lads I say.
_Fifth Evening_
Song of the West-wind o’er the waves,
Song of the billows, as the lave
The shoreline with a mystic moan,
Song of the rushes in the shallow,
Song of the aspen tree and sallow,--
Ever as the undertone.
Song of cicadas and the cricket
From ragged grasses and the thicket,
Song of the whirring dragon-fly,
That goes to sea, but for to die,
Song of the warblers, flitting nigh,
Song of the loon’s weird, distant cry.
Song of a horn on yonder hill,
That echoes in the far away,
The tone is soft as of a rill,--
“The end of a perfect day”--
As sinks the sun, and I depart,
With all this music in my heart.