Those hewers of the clouds, the Winds,—that lair
At the four compass-points,—are out to-night;
I hear their sandals trample on the height,
I hear their voices trumpet through the air:
Builders of Storm, God’s workmen, now they bear,
Up the steep stair of sky, on backs of might,
Huge tempest bulks, while,—sweat that blinds their sight,—
The rain is shaken from tumultuous hair:
Now, sweepers of the firmament, they broom,
Like gathered dust, the rolling mists along
Heaven’s floors of sapphire; all the beautiful blue
Of skyey corridor and aëry room
Preparing, with large laughter and loud song,
For the white moon and stars to wander through.
TOUCHES
In heavens of rivered blue, that sunset dyes
With glaucous flame, deep in the west the day
Stands Midas-like; or, wading on his way,
Touches with splendor all the twilight skies.
Each cloud that, like a stepping-stone, he tries
With rosy foot, transforms its sober gray
To blazing gold; while, ray on crystal ray,
Within his wake the stars like bubbles rise.
So should the artist in his work accord
All things with beauty, and communicate
His soul’s high magic and divinity
To all he does; and, hoping no reward,
Toil onward, making darkness aureate
With light of worlds that be and are to be.
EARTH AND MOON
I saw the day like some great monarch die,
Gold-couched, behind the clouds’ rich tapestries.
Then, purple-sandaled, clothed in silences
Of sleep, through halls of skyey lazuli,
The twilight, like a mourning queen, trailed by,
Dim-paged of dreams and shadowy mysteries;
And now the night, the star-robed child of these,
In meditative loveliness draws nigh.
Earth,—like to Romeo,—deep in dew and scent,
Beneath Heaven’s window, watching till a light,
Like some white blossom, in its square be set,—
Lifts a faint face unto the firmament,
That, with the moon, grows gradually bright,
Bidding him climb and clasp his Juliet.
DUSK
Corn-colored clouds upon a sky of gold,
And ’mid their sheaves,—where, like a daisy-bloom
Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom,
The star of twilight flames,—as Ruth, ’tis told,
Dreamed homesick ’mid the harvest fields of old,
The Dusk goes gleaning color and perfume
From Bible slopes of heaven, that illume
Her pensive beauty deep in shadows stoled.
Hushed is the forest; and blue vale and hill
Are still, save for the brooklet, sleepily
Stumbling the stone with one foam-fluttering foot:
Save for the note of one far whippoorwill,
And in my heart her name,—like some sweet bee
Within a rose,—blowing a fairy flute.