III
Out there where the great, green book,
Whose leaves are the grass and trees,
Lies open; where each may look,
May muse and read as he please;
The book, that is gilt with gleams,
Whose pages are ribboned with streams;
That says what our souls would say
Of beauty that’s wrought of dreams
And buds and blossoms of May.
A WET DAY
Dark, drear, and drizzly, with vapor grizzly,
The day goes dully unto its close;
Its wet robe smutches each thing it touches,
Its fingers sully and wreck the rose.
Around the railing and garden-paling
The dripping lily hangs low its head:
A brood-mare whinnies; and hens and guineas
Droop, damp and chilly, beneath the shed.
In splashing mire about the byre
The cattle huddle, the farm-hand plods;
While to some neighbor’s a wagon labors
Through pool and puddle and clay that clods.
The day, unsplendid, at last is ended,
Is dead and buried, and night has come;—
Night, blind and footless, and foul and fruitless,
With weeping wearied, and sorrow-dumb.
Ah, God! for thunder! for winds to sunder
The clouds and o’er us smite rushing bars!
And through wild masses of storm, that passes,
Roll calm the chorus of moon and stars.
AFTER STORM
Great clouds of sullen seal and gold
Bar bleak the tawny west,
From which all day the thunder rolled,
And storm streamed, crest on crest.