Blind in their bondage, of no change they dream,
But the trees watch in grave expectancy
The spell fulfils,—and swarms of radiant flame,
Live jewels, above the crystal dart and gleam,
Nor guess the sheen beneath their wings to be
The dark and narrow regions whence they came.
BUCKWHEAT
This smell of home and honey on the breeze,
This shimmer of sunshine woven in white and pink
That comes, a dream from memory’s visioned brink,
Sweet, sweet and strange across the ancient trees,—
It is the buckwheat, boon of the later bees,
Its breadths of heavy-headed bloom appearing
Amid the blackened stumps of this high clearing,
Freighted with cheer of comforting auguries.
But when the blunt, brown grain and red-ripe sheaves,
Brimming the low log barn beyond the eaves,
Crisped by the first frost, feel the thresher’s flail,
Then flock the blue wild-pigeons in shy haste
All silently down Autumn’s amber trail,
To glean at dawn the chill and whitening waste.
THE CICADA IN THE FIRS
Charm of the vibrant, white September sun—
How tower the firs to take it, tranced and still!
Their scant ranks crown the pale, round, pasture-hill,
And watch, far down, the austere waters run
Their circuit thro’ the serious marshes dun.
No bird-call stirs the blue; but strangely thrill
The blunt-faced, brown cicada’s wing-notes shrill,
A web of silver o’er the silence spun.
O zithern-winged musician, whence it came,
I wonder, this insistent song of thine!
Did once the highest string of Summer’s lyre,
Snapt on some tense chord slender as a flame,
Take form again in these vibrations fine
That o’er the tranquil spheres of noon aspire?
IN SEPTEMBER
This windy, bright September afternoon
My heart is wide awake, yet full of dreams.
The air, alive with hushed confusion, teems
With scent of grain-fields, and a mystic rune,
Foreboding of the fall of Summer soon,
Keeps swelling and subsiding; till there seems
O’er all the world of valleys, hills, and streams,
Only the wind’s inexplicable tune.
My heart is full of dreams, yet wide awake.
I lie and watch the topmost tossing boughs
Of tall elms, pale against the vaulted blue;
But even now some yellowing branches shake,
Some hue of death the living green endows:—
If beauty flies, fain would I vanish too.