With the rain and the wind on their death-white faces,

  Come to the lure of our leaping fire.

  But we bar them out with this rose-red splendor

  From our blithe domain,

  And drown the whimper of wind and rain

  With undaunted laughter, echoing long,

  Cheery old tale and gay old song;

  Ours is the joyance of ripe fruition,

  Attained ambition.

  Ours is the treasure of tested loving,

  Friendship that needs no further proving;

  No more of springtime hopes, sweet and uncertain,

  Here we have largess of summer in fee —

  Pile high the logs till the flame be leaping,

  At bay the chill of the autumn keeping,

  While pilgrim-wise, we may go a-reaping

  In the fairest meadow of memory!

  UNCOLLECTED POEMS

  CONTENTS

  The Mayflower’s Message

  Apple Blossoms

  In Lilac Time

  In Haying Time

  An Autumn Shower

  When Autumn Comes

  The Last Bluebird

  The Lullaby

  November Dusk

  The First Snowfall

  Buttercups

  Echo

  The Pond Pasture

  Drought

  After Drought

  Rain In The Country

  The Tree Lovers

  In Untrod Woods

  The Wild Places

  A Perfect Day

  Requiem

  In Twilight Fields

  Twilight In Abegweit

  Night In The Pastures

  Night

  On The Gulf Shore

  When The Tide Goes Out

  Before Storm

  The Sandshore In September

  Home From Town

  If I Were Home

  Interlude

  Last Night In Dreams

  Southernwood,

  The Apple-Picking Time

  Coiling Up The Hay

  The Gable Window

  Grandmother’s Garden

  The Light In Mother’s Eyes

  An Old Face

  At The Dance

  Comparisons

  If Love Should Come

  The Parting Soul

  I Asked Of God

  A Thanksgiving

  We Have Seen His Star

  Could We But Know

  I Wish You

  The Land Of Some Day

  The Only Way

  The Revelation

  A Smile

  Success

  The Test

  The Two Guests

  The Words I Did Not Say

  Which Has More Patience — Man Or Woman?

  All A board For Dreamland

  The Grumble Family

  In Twilight Land

  The Quest Of Lazy-Lad

  Up In The Poplars

  What Children Know

  The New Year’s Book

  Farewell

  On Cape Le Force

  June!

  The Mayflower’s Message

  Here on the gray old hillside where minstrel breezes blow,

  And fir-trees dim and ancient with mossy branches grow,

  ‘Mid grasses brown and broken where scarce our faces show,

  All bravely and undaunted we bloom above the snow.

  The winds are chill and bitter that o’er the valleys ring,

  And not a vagrant bluebird as yet is here to sing;

  But all the world is waiting to greet the news we bring,

  And all our blossoms letter a message from the spring.

  We are the blithe forerunners of sunshine and of May,

  And many a wood-bird’s rondel and many a merry day.

  Therefore, sad earth, we bid you all joyous be and gay,

  For we are sent to tell you that springtime comes this way.

  Apple Blossoms

  White as the snows on sunless peaks,

  Pink as the earliest blush of morn,

  Pure as the thought of a stainless soul,

  Perfect and sweet as a joy new-born:

  Always they bloom in these long rare days,

  When Maytime drifts into balmy June,

  When the winds purr lightly among the leaves,

  And meadow and woodland are all atune;

  Ever and always there they blow —

  Apple-blossoms of rose and snow!

  Purple twilights and rose-red dawns,

  Dimmest of hazes on far green hills,

  Wonderful midnights and clear blue days,

  Rapturous music of wild-bird trills:

  Lightness of heart and dreams of joy,

  Subtlest visions and fancies fair,

  Tenderest hopes for the hours to come,

  Freedom from worry and grief and care:

  Come where the apple-blossoms blow —

  Perfumed driftings of rose and snow.

  In Lilac Time

  When the hills in the distance are misty

  With hazes of shimmering blue,

  When the birds sing with rapture at dawning

  And the pastures are silver with dew,

  When the skies are of sapphire radiance

  And the apple tree boughs are ablow,

  Then the lilacs hang out in the garden

  Their clusters of purple and snow.

  When a new moon shines after the sunset

  In the heart of the mellow southwest,

  And the winds astray in the meadows

  Are bent on their summertime quest,

  When the cherry trees down in the orchard

  Are white as the robe of a bride.

  The lilac trees here at my window

  Are decked in their splendor and pride.

  In the odorous hush of the twilight

  The evening breeze steals their perfume,

  Till the rain-freshened nooks of the garden

  Are sweet with the breath of their bloom,

  And at morning a bluebird a-tilting

  On the tip of a tremulous spray

  Pipes out in their thicket of sweetness

  A madrigal buoyant and gay.

  Oh! our hearts are atune with the music

  Of summer and blossom and bird!

  It is worth our while just to be living

  When the pulses of nature are stirred.

  There’s nothing so sweet as the joyance

  That comes when the June breezes blow

  And the lilac trees out in the garden

  Are crowned with their purple and snow.

  In Haying Time

  Wide meadows under lucent skies

  Lie open, free to sun and breeze,

  Where bird and bee and rustling leaf

  Blend all their air-born melodies

  In one sweet symphony of sound.

  The lush green grasses bend and sway,

  And fleet winds steal from new-mown slopes

  The fragrance of the clover hay.

  The fields at dawn are silver-white,

  And wet with their baptismal dew;

  They ripen in the long rare noons

  Beneath a dome of cloudless blue;

  And in the twilight’s purple dusk,

  How solemn, hushed, and dim they lie!

  At night a mellow moon looks down

  From silent, star-sown, depths of sky.

  Each passing hour of night and day

  Some new and rare enchantment brings,

  In flowers that bloom and winds that blow,

  And joy of shy, blithe, living things

  That hide within the meadows green,

  Or murmur in the drowsy fields;

  And all the golden air is sweet

  With incense rose-red clover yields.

  Faint whispers wander to and fro,

  On idle winds, from east to west.

  The dainty blossoms lift their cups

  Of perfume o’er the bluebird’s nest;

  The meadowlarks their raptures trill

  To drown the brooklet’s murmuring chime,

  When ripened summer ushers in

  The witcheries of the haying time.

  An Autumn Shower

  Upon the russet fringes of the hill

  The shadow of a cloud falls dark and still;

  Then with a sweep and rush of wind the rain

  Comes down the valley and across the plain,

  Where many a spicy cup

  Of asters pale and sweet is lifted up.

  The pattering feet of raindrops are astir

  In pine-land aisles and resinous glens of fir,

  And dance across the harbor till afar,

  Beyond the restless moaning of the bar,

  They croon in harmony

  With all the harp-like voices of the sea.

  The cloud is swift in passing — in an hour

  The sun is shining on the parting shower

  Athwart the flaming maples; and the cup

  Of the long glistening valley is brimmed up

  With wine of airy mist,

  Purple and silver and faint amethyst.

  The wind from many a wild untrodden bourne

  Comes sweet with breath of drenched and tangled fern

  To croon in minstrel grasses; where it stirs

  The goldenrod its kingly vesture wears;

  Meadow and wood and plain

  Have caught the benediction of the rain!

  When Autumn Comes

  The city is around us, and the clamor of the mart:

  Its grip is on our pulses, and its clutch upon our heart.

  We cannot hear the music of the olden dreams and days:

  We have no time to tread in thought the sweet forgotten ways.

  But when the tang of autumn air sweeps up the breathless street,

  With sudden hint of reddening leaves and garnered fields of wheat,

  Of golden lights on pastures wide and shadows in the glen,

  Our souls thrill with the yearning wish to be at home again.

  Out there the misty sea laps glad on crisp and windy sands;

  Out there the smoke-blue asters blow on breezy meadow lands;

  Out there the joyous marigolds in marsh and swamp are bright —

  Despite the breath of chilly morn and nip of frosty night.

  The air is ripe and pungent, and the sky is free from stain;

  The fallen leaves are whispering in many a woodland lane;

  And O to roam upon the hills when all the west is red,

  When the moon rises from the sea and stars shine overhead!

  And O to see the homelight from the farmhouse window glow,

  Athwart the purple-falling dusk as in the long ago;

  To hail it with our eager eyes when pilgrimage is o’er,

  And dream one dream of boyhood ‘neath our father’s roof once more!

  The Last Bluebird

  The grasses are sere and the meadows are brown,

  The last clinging red leaf has fluttered adown;

  The swallows and thrushes have long ago flown,

  The woods are all voiceless, the valleys all lone,

  And soon I must flee

  Far over the sea

  Where warm sunny southlands are waiting for me.

  The sunsets are crimson, and all through the days

  The tired earth is napping in magical haze;

  But the mornings are frosty, the twilights are cold,

  The woodways are lost in their driftings of gold,

  And well do I know

  That full soon comes the snow,

  And in spite of the sunshine it’s high time to go.

  For the breath of the north wind is bitter and chill

  And my nest-tree is bare on the slope of the hill:

  Earth’s music has fled, and the winter is long,

  And over the sea I must follow my song;

  So I twitter good-by

  Once again ere I fly

  To a far away land and a sunnier sky.

  But the winter will pass, and once more in the spring

  The violets will bloom and the robins will sing;

  The orchards grow white, and the gay brooklets chime

  Their welcome again to the fair summer time,

  And over the sea

  With a song glad and free,

  I’ll come back to my nest in the old apple tree.

  The Lullaby

  Today I walked on the uplands

  Where the vagrant breezes blow,

  And I heard the autumn singing

  A lullaby soft and low,

  As she tucked the flowers and grasses

  In a cradle warm and deep,

  Like a loving nurse and tender,

  Crooning them all to sleep.

  “The swallows are southward flying,”

  So ran the song I heard,

  “And last night in the russet valley

  The breath of the frost-king stirred;

  So you must sleep my darlings,

  While the drear days come and go,

  Dreaming of springtide wakening

  Deep down under the snow.

  “Goldenrod, you must slumber

  Here on the brown hill’s crest;

  Wood flowers all, you must nestle

  Close to the forest’s breast;

  Asters, clovers, and daisies,

  Warmly I fold you away —

  In the wide kind arms of the meadows

  Sleep till the call of May.

  Sleep till the swallows northward

  Come from across the sea,

  And all the summer sunshine

  Laughs out o’er the windy lea.

  Sleep, my dear little blossoms,

  While your slumber song I sing

  Sleep, little leaves and grasses

  And waken up in the spring.

  November Dusk

  A weird and dreamy stillness falls upon

  The purple breathless earth, the windless woods,

  The wimpling rims of valley solitudes,

  The wide gray stubble-fields, and fallows wan —

  A quiet hush, as if, her heyday gone,

  Tired Nature folded weary hands for rest

  Across the faded vesture of her breast,

  Knowing her wintry slumbers hasten on.

  Far and away beyond the ocean’s rim

  The dull-red sunset fades into the gray

  Of sombre wind-rent clouds, that marshal grim

  Around the closing portals of the day,

  While from the margin of the tawny shore

  Comes up the voice of waters evermore.

  The First Snowfall

  A bitter chill has fallen o’er the land

  In this dull breathlessness of afternoon:

  Voiceless and motionless the maples stand,

  Heart-broken, with each other to commune

  In silent hopelessness. The cold gray sky

  Has blotted out the mountain’s misty blue,

  The nearer hills are palled in sombre guise

  Where shivering gleams of fitful light fall through.

  Then comes the snowfall, as pale Autumn folds

  A misty bridal veil about her hair,

  And lingers waiting in the yellowed wolds

  Until her wintry bridegroom greet her there.

  The hills are hidden and we see the woods

  Like hosts of phantoms in the waning light.

  The grassless fields, the leaf-strewn solitudes,

  Grow dim before the fast oncoming night.

  The lonely meadows pale and whiten swift,

  The trees their tracery of ermine weave,

  Like larger flakes dim flocks of snowbirds drift

  Across the fading landscape of the eve.

  Darkness comes early and beneath its wings

  We see a wraith-like world with spectres filled —

  Naught but cold semblances of real things

  As though Earth’s breathing were forever stilled.

  Buttercups

  Like showers of gold dust on the marsh,

  Or an inverted sky,

  The buttercups are dancing now

  Where silver brooks run by.

  Bright, bright,

  As fallen flakes of light,

  They nod

  In time to every breeze

  That chases shadows swiftly lost

  Amid those grassy seas.

  See, what a golden frenzy flies

  Through the light-hearted flowers!

  In mimic fear they flutter now;

  Each fairy blossom cowers.

  Then up, then up,

  Each shakes its yellow cup

  And nods

  In careless grace once more —

  A very flood of sunshine seems

  Across the marsh to pour.

  Echo

  Here in my bosky glen, beneath dim pines I hide,

  Unseen by the curious eyes of men, alone in the hills I bide,

  Where the sunrise is born and the cataract leaps down

  the mountain side.

  Ever I wrap me round in my leafy solitude

  With my gleaming wreath of myrtle crowned, in the depth of

  waste and wood,

  To laugh at the world from the heart of the hills and mimic

  its every mood.

  Dark are my eyes and hair, and my breast is white as snow,

  But never a mortal may see how fair... I am fleeter than the roe,

  And the silver notes of my mocking voice are all that the world may know.

  You may hear me call at night, from the springs of haunted rills;

  You may hear my laughter floating light, when the starry dew distils.

  I am the nymph of the airy voice and my home is in the hills.

  Whenever you call to me I will answer to you again;

  But my form and face you will never see, you of the race of men,

  I flee afar when you follow me to the heart of my purple glen!

  The Pond Pasture

  It is purely fair and fragrant in its wide unbroken green,

  Where the water laps and murmurs on the margin thick with fern;

  All the slope is sweet and tangled with the clover’s rose red screen,

  And the comers are a-flutter where the orange lilies bum.

  There are countless shadows flying where the white-stemmed birches bend

  Over lisping wave and ripple on its hushed and dreamy shore.

  There are minstrel breezes blowing where the swaying grasses blend,

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 772 773 774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781 782 783 784 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 796 797