Thou dream-like toiler of the fields!
Each honeyed spot thou knowest well
Where Nature’s heart her sweetness yields,
Some ruined trunk thy citadel;
There buildest a home for Winter’s hour
In some lone, sunlight-haunted place,
When all the year is at its power,
And June’s high-tide on bank and bower
Mirrors in blossoms Nature’s face.
At early morn by breathing wood,
Or in some dewy clover dell,
Tuning the young day’s solitude,—
Or down the slumbrous afternoon,
Rich-freighted, wingest thy tuneful way,
Self-musing, murmurous, musical;
Amid the whole world’s dreamy swoon,
Sole voice of all the drowsèd day,
Until the gradual shadows fall:—
Then, by some lonely pasture-fell
At ruddy eve when homeward come
Past deepening shade or fading ray
The weary children of the day.
I hear thy joyous, drowsy hum,
Till stars peep out and woods breathe low,
And sounds of human toil grow dumb,
And Night, the blessèd, comes apace,
Bending to Earth’s her cooling face,
While airs across the dark outblow:
Then rocked on some glad blossom’s breast,
Thou dreamest to rest.
When Summer wanes to Autumn’s age,
And come the days of fate and rage,
O happy Humming Bee!
Then wilt thou sink to wintry sleep,
When storms are hoarse along the deep,
In hushed tranquillity.
No more wilt wind thy subtle horn
By dreamy eve or misty morn,
When trees are leafless, pastures shorn.
Ah me! ah me!
Could we, like thee, go down the days
Of summer hush to autumn haze.
Housing, with what we built before,
The gold of all our memory’s store
And garnered thought;
So when the bleak December’s hate
Beat round the bastions of our fate,
We, wrapt in wealth of honeyed dreams
Of kindlier visions, far-off streams,
Might heed it not.
The Children of the Foam
Out forever and forever,
Where our tresses glint and shiver
On the icy moonlit air;
Come we from a land of gloaming,
Children lost, forever homing,
Never, never reaching there;
Ride we, ride we, ever faster,
Driven by our demon master,
The wild wind in his despair;
Ride we, ride we, ever home,
Wan, white children of the foam.
In the wild October dawning,
When the heaven’s angry awning
Leans to lakeward, bleak and drear;
And along the black, wet ledges,
Under icy, caverned edges,
Breaks the lake in maddened fear;
And the woods in shore are moaning;
Then you hear our weird intoning,
Mad, late children of the year;
Ride we, ride we, ever home,
Lost, white children of the foam.
All gray day, the black sky under,
Where the beaches moan and thunder,
Where the breakers spume and comb,
You may hear our riding, riding,
You may hear our voices chiding,
Under glimmer, under gloam;
Like a far-off infant wailing,
You may hear our hailing, hailing,
For the voices of our home;
Ride we, ride we, ever home,
Haunted children of the foam.
And at midnight, when the glimmer
Of the moon grows dank and dimmer,
Then we lift our gleaming eyes;
Then you see our white arms tossing,
Our wan breasts the moon embossing,
Under gloom of lake and skies;
You may hear our mournful chanting,
And our voices haunting, haunting,
Through the night’s mad melodies;
Riding, riding, ever home,
Wild, white children of the foam.