PART TWO.
JULY.
Come walk a mile with me—'Tis July weather;
The western sun is burning round and bright,
And not a breeze disturbs yon tiny feather
From a young swallow loosen'd in its flight;
But hark!—in yonder broad and sunlit meadow
The sound of busy mowers fill the air,
While from a tree that casts a pleasing shadow,
Is heard the locust piping shrilly there.
And see, how strong men lift the scented grasses!
And how they pile the wagons with the hay!
How fast the rake, with rolling burden, passes!
How regular the long, round winrows lay!
And see!—the sun—the great round sun is setting,
Like a red rose upon the distant hill,
Till all the earth seems tenderly forgetting
Day's dying light on meadow, lake and rill;
But come!—for darkness soon will gather round us,
And we must pass through yonder woodlands there;
And then white fields of buckwheat will surround us,
And then—then—home we shall together share.
AUGUST
Come walk a mile with me—'Tis August. Listen!
The meadow-quail is whistling merrily,
And see!—the dew-drops, like great diamonds, glisten
On grass and shrub and bush and bending tree;
And everywhere is peace and joy and plenty,
For everywhere this morning we may go
One seed of Spring has well returned its twenty,
Till Autumn's face with goodness is aglow.
Yes, oaten fields are white and ripe for reaping,
And green things paling in the garden there
Tell us too well that Summer is a-sleeping,
And harvest-time is on us unaware;
The early apples even now are falling,
The tassel'd corn, the fields of ripening rye,
The purpling grape—all, all are sadly calling
That Summer's glory, too, must fade and die.
But hark!—what sound is that!—it seems like thunder,
And yet 'tis but the wind, within the trees,—
The far-off wind, fresh-filled with nameless wonder,—
A prophesy of Autumn's freshening breeze.
SEPTEMBER
Come walk a mile with me—'Tis sweet September;
And quietly the clouds are gliding by,
And silent runs the brook that, you remember,
We pass'd last Spring—it now is dumb and dry,
And overhead, the first red leaf is falling,
And, underfoot, the flowers are fading fast,
While in the air I hear a strange, sad calling
That tells me Summer is forever past.
And yet how peaceful seems the face of Heaven,
How calm the earth is—Nature is at rest,
And all the hopes that unto Spring were given,
Folds Autumn now in silence to her breast;
The birds are singing, yet not half so sweetly
As when they sung their song at opening Spring,
And flowers are blooming, yet not so completely
As when the birds were first upon the wing;
And I am singing—but the fading glory
Of Autumn-time subdues my idle song,
For what is Autumn but the sweet sad story
Of leaves that fade and lives that last not long.
OCTOBER
Come walk a mile with me—'Tis now October;
And yet the fields put forth fresh blades of green.
Lest the advancing days shall seem to sober,
And prophesy too plainly the unseen;
For Nature loves to lead us forward blindly,—
Giving a glory to the fading leaf!
Yet were it worse if, speaking less unkindly,
Nature should plainly tell us life is brief.
The flowers, too, are fading—and are dying,
The leaves are falling, and incessantly,
And on the hills great flocks of crows are crying,
And the blue-jays once more are calling me;
But Winter!—Winter soon, too soon, is coming,
For see!—see there,—the frost is on the grass!
And the wild-bee—I hear no more its humming
As once I did, wherever I might pass;
And robin—he is gone, and all the singing
Of all the sweet birds now no more I hear,
While the dry leaves, to barren branches clinging,
Full plainly speak the passing of the year.
NOVEMBER
Come walk a mile with me—November!—Faintly
The long, blue hills lift to the eastern sky;
'Tis Indian-summer now—this day seems saintly,
Like some good martyr e'er he goes to die;
The skies are cloudless; not a breeze is blowing,
And silent is each bare and leafless form;
The brooks—how quiet!—I like not their flowing,
For oh,—it is the calm before the storm.
Yes, yes—e'en now—to Westward—look! a figure
Is sudden forming, stretching forth a wand,
Shaping a shape as of some giant, bigger
Than any fabled thing from Fairyland;
Higher and higher that strange shape is lifting,
Swifter and swifter its fleet heralds run,
Wider and wider its white breath is drifting
As lower sinks the slow decending sun;
And now—the storm!—the storm is on us. Hurry!
Yet see!—the myriad snow-flakes—see them come!
O Comrade!—See!—it is young Winter's flurry—
And yet 'tis but the storm that drives us home.
DECEMBER
Come walk a mile with me—'Tis dark December;
The cold, rough winds are never, never still;
O for the days of Spring I well remember!
O for the flowers that blossomed on the hill!—
And wish you not that you,—you too were playing
Upon the hillside, building castles there,
Dreaming sweet dreams, as when we went a-Maying,
Midst singing birds and blossoms sweet and fair?
But hark, the wind!—and see, the falling snow-flakes!
How thick they come—how beautiful they seem!
Yet I am weary—weary of the snow-flakes—
O Comrade!—tell me,—is it all a dream;
O Comrade!—Comrade!—Winter is upon us;
Our hopes, like snow-flakes, now are falling fast,
Our dreams are broken—God have mercy on us!—
We must not perish in the wintry blast—
For see, O see!—the sun,—the sun is shining!
'Tis noon, and lo!—yon glorious orb of day
Is turning backward, a New-year designing—
So shall all Winters turn to Spring alway.
And so shall Winter be an emblem only
Of the dark days that meet us, one and all,
Making our little lives seem sad and lonely,
Until the New-Year answers to our call,
Until another Spring renewing Nature;
Renews our hopes that were so desolate
Giving us faith that not one living creature
Is blindly born to blindly meet its fate.
[NIAGARA]
Thus, when thy ancient spirit touch'd those keys,
Those smoothly polished keys,
Those swift and mighty keys
A powerful yet a pleasing note was found
That gave to Silence round
A song whereof no mortal heard a sound,
But which did Heaven please
Through the long centuries,
And unto these.
Then, when the red-men's blue-eyed brother came
Beside this shrine, thy temple here to claim,
Humbled was he,
Such glory here to see;
Thy awful music's note
Upon his spirit smote
Subduing stronger passions of the mind,
Until, like prisoners, suffering there confined,
Those gentler melodies
Within his bosom there,
Ascended with thy voice to heav'n
In one triumphant prayer.
Then louder, ye organ of America,
Still louder sound thy anthems on the sky;
And thou, Niagara, e'er thy spirit die,
Wake!—wake the courts of Heaven with thy lay,
Till the dear angels learn like thee to pray
For all the world to-day;
Yet louder, ye organ of America,
Still louder, let thy Spirit from those keys,—
Those smoothly polished keys,
Those swift and heavy keys,—
Strike, with inspiring fingers,
Heaven-and-earth's triumphant harmonies.
[FAIRIES OF THE FROST]
[THE RIVERMEN.]
When the creeks flow'd wild round the Delaware,
And the sky showed blue through the sharp Spring air,
And the rafts were waiting the raftmen there,
Then these rivermen were ill-content
Until their backs to the oars were bent—
So 'twas ho! for the raft and the river again,
The raft and the river for rivermen.
When, in days gone by, down the Delaware
Those great rafts tethered against the shore,
Were loosed like chafing steeds once more,
Then out of the valleys, and off the hills
The raftmen came flocking with school-boy wills—
And 'twas ho! for the raft and the river again,
The raft and the river for rivermen.
[THE SCHOOL OF LIFE]
And months pass by—the babe becomes a child,
Eager to learn, to imitate, to know,
Lisping the lessons of a higher grade,
Repeating words of wisdom, gems of truth
That others think the little thing should know;
Until at length in childish innocence
It leaves the kindergarten of the world,
And knocks upon the door of adult life,
And enters there, flushed with the lulling sense
Of something new. The playthings are forgot;
The little bells no longer please the ear,
The little books no longer feed the mind,
The little seats no longer suit the child,
The little friends no longer stir the soul,
For it hath learned the alphabet of life,
And put aside the primer once for all.
There is a longing now for deeper life
That fills the heart to overflow—there is
A tumult now within the swollen veins,
When, for the first, they feel a larger life
In unison close beating to its own—
There is a hatred of authority
And of restraint—a satisfaction now
As of a soul enamoured with itself,
A soul insolvent on the rising tide
Of pure existence, with such a stubborness
As mocks advice and takes a happy pace,
Securer of its own security.
And like the waters of a swollen stream,
That leaves its early channels far behind,
Youth ventures into unknown paths, full fed
By surging hopes, by sudden, deep desires,
By wild ambitions and a thousand things,
Unnamed and nameless—rivulets of life
That ever empty in this stirring stream.
Now would the student leave his school, and play
Among the hills, or in the valley's shade,—
Now would the scholar chafe at books
And knowledge and authority—rough banks
That, like a dyke, hold in life's mighty stream
Until the floods of Springtime can abate,
And in a clearer, safer channel course again.
So, with life's lessons still unlearned
Full many a scholar e'en would graduate
With highest honors, and in his pride
And surety of knowledge be a god
To give advice to those who should advise;
Forth full of wisdom would he quickly go,
And even issue take with all the world,
But when this truant-fever runs its course,
This hey-day of existence has its turn,
Back to the school the skulking scholar comes,
Like a whipped cur, and willing to be taught
By those same teachers he so lately spurn'd,
And left for larger things.
For manhood now
Is here—the errors and the follies, everyone,
By the wise student surely now are seen,
And in the book of life he reads with ready eye
The rules and lessons, and considers well
His bold instructors,—Want,—Adversity,—
And Disappointment, with her heavy hand;
The whip of Scorn, and Sorrow's bitter book,
And Sickness' long and tedious term,
And all the various teachers of the school.
And if perchance these lessons be forgot,
These, his instructors, will rehearse him well,
Lest he forget in later life these things,
And be a dullard in the school of schools,
A freshman wise in his own foolishness.
So manhood comes—and so it surely goes,
From grade to grade and term to term,
With all the questions and perplexing rules,
And devious methods of the Master-mind,
Who holds the key to all the questionings,
Yet leaves the student to himself alone,
Half puzzled by the figures on the dial
That tell the hour when he shall graduate
Above earth's petty problems, and shall hold
A clearance to that life which is to come,
And whereunto he graduates, perchance,
A better man.
A better man—if not,
So shall he go again in that same grade
Where like a laggard half-asleep in school,
He wakes to find himself a scholar still,
With all the vexing problems yet unsolved,
Which, in his idleness and lust of life,
Were left until the morrow, and the sun
To usher in another dreamless day.
So manhood comes—and so it surely goes,
Till those who here have studied to become
Proficient in the lessons of this life,
Shall be excused from school, and left to play
By running brooks and hills that shout for joy,
And living waters wild in their delight.
So is it meet that all should labor now
To learn these lessons well, so, when the day
Of graduation comes, a Voice will say:—
Well-done; perfect in life, perfect in death;
Receive thy rich reward, for thou hast found—
Perfection is the only key to Heaven.