She hears him whistling as he leans,
And, reaping, sweeps the ripe wheat by;
She sighs and smiles, and knows not why,
Nor what her heart's disturbance means:
He whets his scythe, and, resting, sees
Her rose-like 'mid the hives of bees,
Beneath the flowering beans.
The peacock-purple lizard creeps
Along the rail; and deep the drone
Of insects makes the country lone
With summer where the water sleeps:
She hears him singing as he swings
His scythe—who thinks of other things
Than toil, and, singing, reaps.
NOËRA
Noëra, when sad Fall
Has grayed the fallow;
Leaf-cramped the wood-brook's brawl
In pool and shallow;
When, by the woodside, tall
Stands sere the mallow.
Noëra, when gray gold
And golden gray
The crackling hollows fold
By every way,
Shall I thy face behold,
Dear bit of May?
When webs are cribs for dew,
And gossamers
Streak by you, silver-blue;
When silence stirs
One leaf, of rusty hue,
Among the burrs:
Noëra, through the wood,
Or through the grain,
Come, with the hoiden mood
Of wind and rain
Fresh in thy sunny blood,
Sweetheart, again.
Noëra, when the corn,
Reaped on the fields,
The asters' stars adorn;
And purple shields
Of ironweeds lie torn
Among the wealds:
Noëra, haply then,
Thou being with me,
Each ruined greenwood glen
Will bud and be
Spring's with the spring again,
The spring in thee.
Thou of the breezy tread;
Feet of the breeze:
Thou of the sunbeam head;
Heart like a bee's:
Face like a woodland-bred
Anemone's.