There,—when harvest heights impend
Over shores of rippling summer,
And to greet the fair new-comer,—
June,—the wildrose thickets bend
In a million blossoms dressed,—
All the land is one with rest.
On some rock, where gaunt the oak
Reddens and the sombre cedar
Darkens, like a sachem leader,
I have lain and watched the smoke
Of the steamboat, far-away,
Trailed along the dying day.
There,—when margin waves reflect
Autumn colors, gay and sober,
And the Indian-girl, October,
Wampum-like in berries decked,
Leans above the leaf-strewn streams,—
All the land is one with dreams.
Through the bottoms where,—out-tossed
By the wind’s wild hands,—ashiver
Bend the willows o’er the river,
I have walked in sleet and frost,
While beneath the cold round moon,
Frozen, gleamed the long lagoon.
There,—when leafless woods uplift
Spectral arms the storm-blasts splinter,
And the hoary trapper, Winter,
Builds his camp of ice and drift,
With his snow-pelts furred and shod,—
All the land is one with God.
VOICES
When blood-root blooms and trillium flowers
Unclasp their stars to sun and rain,
My heart strikes hands with winds and showers
And wanders in the woods again.
O urging impulse, born of spring!
That makes glad April of my soul,
No bird, however wild of wing,
Is more impatient of control.
Impetuous of pulse it beats
Within my blood and bears me hence;
Above the housetops and the streets
I hear its happy eloquence.