When in the tangled thorn
The new-moon hangs a horn,
Or, ’mid the sunset’s islands,
Guides her canoe,
The brown owl in the silence
Calls, and the dew
Beads glimmering orbs of damp,
Each one a glow-worm lamp.
Then when the night is still
Here sings the whippoorwill;
And stealthy sounds of crickets,
And winds that pass,
Whispering, through bramble thickets
Along the grass,
Faint with warm scents of hay,
Seem feet of dreams astray.
And where the water shines
Dark through tree-twisted vines,
Some water-spirit, dreaming,
Braids in her hair
A star’s reflection; seeming
A jewel there;
While all the sweet night long
Ripples her quiet song....
Would I could imitate,
O path, thy happy state!
Making my life all beauty,
All bloom and beam;
Knowing no other duty
But just to dream,
And far from pain and woe
Lead feet that come and go.
Leading to calm content,
O’er ways the Master went,
Through lowly things and humble,
To peace and love;
Teaching the lives that stumble
To look above,
Forget the world of toil
And all its mad turmoil.
ALONG THE STREAM
Where the violet shadows brood
Under cottonwoods and beeches,
Through whose leaves the restless reaches
Of the river glance, I’ve stood,
While the red-bird and the thrush
Set to song the morning hush.
There,—when wakening woods encroach
On the shadowy winding waters,
And the bluets, April’s daughters,
At the darling Spring’s approach,
Star their myriads through the trees,—
All the land is one with peace.
Under some imposing cliff,
That, with bush and tree and boulder,
Thrusts a gray, gigantic shoulder
O’er the stream, I’ve oared a skiff,
While great clouds of iceberg hue
Lounged along the noonday blue.