THE SONG-SPARROW.
Glimmers gray the leafless thicket
Close beside my garden gate,
Where, so light, from post to picket
Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate;
Who, with meekly folded wing,
Comes to sun himself and sing.
It was there, perhaps, last year,
That his little house he built;
For he seems to perk and peer,
And to twitter, too, and tilt
The bare branches in between,
With a fond, familiar mien.
Once, I know, there was a nest,
Held there by the sideward thrust
Of those twigs that touch his breast;
Though 'tis gone now. Some rude gust
Caught it, over-full of snow,—
Bent the bush,—and robbed it so
Thus our highest holds are lost,
By the ruthless winter's wind,
When, with swift-dismantling frost,
The green woods we dwelt in, thinn'd
Of their leafage, grow too cold
For frail hopes of summer's mold.
But if we, with spring-days mellow,
Wake to woeful wrecks of change,
And the sparrow's ritornello
Scaling still its old sweet range;
Can we do a better thing
Than, with him, still build and sing?
Oh, my sparrow, thou dost breed
Thought in me beyond all telling;
Shootest through me sunlight, seed,
And fruitful blessing, with that welling
Ripple of ecstatic rest,
Gurgling ever from thy breast!
And thy breezy carol spurs
Vital motion in my blood,
Such as in the sapwood stirs,
Swells and shapes the pointed bud
Of the lilac; and besets
The hollows thick with violets.
Yet I know not any charm
That can make the fleeting time
Of thy sylvan, faint alarm
Suit itself to human rhyme:
And my yearning rhythmic word,
Does thee grievous wrong, dear bird.
So, however thou hast wrought
This wild joy on heart and brain,
It is better left untaught.
Take thou up the song again:
There is nothing sad afloat
On the tide that swells thy throat!
FAIRHAVEN BAY.
I push on through the shaggy wood,
I round the hill: 't is here it stood;
And there, beyond the crumbled walls,
The shining Concord slowly crawls,
Yet seems to make a passing stay,
And gently spreads its lilied bay,
Curbed by this green and reedy shore,
Up toward the ancient homestead's door.
But dumbly sits the shattered house,
And makes no answer: man and mouse
Long since forsook it, and decay
Chokes its deep heart with ashes gray.
On what was once a garden-ground
Dull red-bloomed sorrels now abound;
And boldly whistles the shy quail
Within the vacant pasture's pale.
Ah, strange and savage, where he shines,
The sun seems staring through those pines
That once the vanished home could bless
With intimate, sweet loneliness.
The ignorant, elastic sod
The feet of them that daily trod
Its roods hath utterly forgot:
The very fire-place knows them not.
For, in the weedy cellar, thick
The ruined chimney's mass of brick
Lies strown. Wide heaven, with such an ease
Dost thou, too, lose the thought of these?
Yet I, although I know not who
Lived here, in years that voiceless grew
Ere I was born,—and never can,—
Am moved, because I am a man.
Oh glorious gift of brotherhood!
Oh sweet elixir in the blood,
That makes us live with those long dead,
Or hope for those that shall be bred
Hereafter! No regret can rob
My heart of this delicious throb;
No thought of fortunes haply wrecked,
Nor pang for nature's wild neglect.
And, though the hearth be cracked and cold,
Though ruin all the place enfold,
These ashes that have lost their name
Shall warm my life with lasting flame!
CHANT FOR AUTUMN.
Veiled in visionary haze,
Behold, the ethereal autumn days
Draw near again!
In broad array,
With a low, laborious hum
These ministers of plenty come,
That seem to linger, while they steal away.
O strange, sweet charm
Of peaceful pain,
When yonder mountain's bended arm
Seems wafting o'er the harvest-plain
A message to the heart that grieves,
And round us, here, a sad-hued rain
Of leaves that loosen without number
Showering falls in yellow, umber,
Red, or russet, 'thwart the stream!
Now pale Sorrow shall encumber
All too soon these lands, I deem;
Yet who at heart believes
The autumn, a false friend,
Can bring us fatal harm?
Ah, mist-hung avenues in dream
Not more uncertainly extend
Than the season that receives
A summer's latest gleam!
But the days of death advance:
They tarry not, nor turn!
I will gather the ashes of summer
In my heart, as an urn.
Oh draw thou nearer,
Thou
Spirit of the distant height,
Whither now that slender flight
Of swallows, winging, guides my sight!
The hill cloth seem to me
A fading memory
Of long delight,
And in its distant blue
Half hideth from my view
This shrinking season that must now retire;
And so shall hold it, hopeful, a desire
And knowledge old as night and always new.
Draw nigher! And, with bended brow,
I will be thy reverer
Through the long winter's term!
So, when the snows hold firm,
And the brook is dumb;
When sharp winds come
To flay the hill-tops bleak,
And whistle down the creek;
While the unhappy worm
Crawls deeper down into the ground,
To 'scape Frost's jailer on his round;
Thy form to me shall speak
From the wide valley's bound,
Recall the waving of the last bird's wing,
And help me hope for spring.