PLIMOTH THROUGH AN OLD SPY GLASS.
(A SKETCH).
Deep nestled in my heart there glows,
Against an azure sky,
A picture I would paint for you,
But O, how dare I try?
My brush should be a sheldrake’s wing,
My palette were the moon,
My colors were the pulsing morn,
With mystic odors strewn;
Its background wandering tribes of men,
The wilderness, the sea,
Whose vast unbroken solitudes
Were moaning to be free.
Or yet, as on that natal day,
The fate-winds, white and cold,
The tide and wrack, far ebbing back,
Strange secrets should unfold.
We blot a page, and cross ourselves,
The cross is red, blood red;
Eternal change in girded loins,
And progress, hide the dead.
The hour glass turns, the mill-wheels hum,
O’er arching field and hill,
In rainbow tints a finger writes:
“Peace, Peace on Earth, Good Will.”
I glimpse the narrow winding streets,
Where linden trees bend o’er,
And homes with windows quaintly draped,
With hollyhocks by the door.
How were my picture made complete,
No kindly faces here?
But do I need the master-touch,
So radiant they appear.
How filled with joy, forever young,
The wanton breezes play;
How magical the distant blue,
How lily-white the way
Of phantom sails, all shimmering,
With lights where shallops roam,
When Aphrodite from the mist
Salutes the sea-born foam.
Dim as a half forgotten dream
The pageant moves along,
The Land of Promise beckoning;
I hear a spinning-song,
From lighthouse, school and steeple-bell,
O’er country-side and glen,
Love’s madrigals go ringing out
In praise of honest men.
But I would paint the twisted pines
On that old sturdy strand,
And I would have you see me kneel
And kiss the holy sand.
And then, my brush all palpitant
With light of virgin skies,
I’d consecrate my little sketch
And name it “Paradise.”