BEFORE HARVEST.
And now 'tis time for Harvest. Hark! and lo,
With ringing sound of full melodious horn,
Over yon eastern hill-top all aglow,—
Her sickle gleaming in the golden morn,
Her arm upraised with sheaf of yellow corn,—
She comes elate with light, elastic pace;
Her neck and zone full-clustered vines adorn;
Her saffron locks, fruit-crowned; her luscious grace;
Her round and ripened form; her fair, benignant face.
And now the fields, when suns serenely greet,
A rich and mellow, wanton joy afford:
The russet pease vines, and the burnished wheat
And whiter barley,—hating to be stored,
Guarding with jealous spears their precious hoard,—
The tapering oat-stalk, dangling beads of gold:
In brilliant sea of beauty all outpoured,
With dazzling depth of splendor all untold,
Where fleets of zephyrs skip in fold that follows fold
Like to a dream I had but yesternight,
Of pure, transporting, childlike playfulness,
The presence of a fair-haired, blue-eyed, bright,
Thoughtless and laughing.—Words can not express
In poet phrase the fulness that did bless
Entrancingly my vision. I advanced
Behind to worship. Straight each golden tress
Was ruffled and about my face they danced,
Smoth'ring with beauty, while the maiden gleeful glanced.
IN ANTICIPATION OF AUTUMN.
But now the Summer hastens to its close,
And soon will Song a different aspect wear,
Sweeping terrific, clad in ghostly snows,
And lit by the flash of the Boreal glare,
Or, but a poet in his easy chair;
And her most pleasing aspect now beguiles
What time is hers with deft, endearing air:
With gorgeous gold she decks her garments, whiles
Her melancholy face with Indian Summer smiles.
Thy very smile sends sadness to my heart.
Farewell! sweet love, the happy hour is o'er:
Too well I knew that we again must part.
Her garments trail the fond, reluctant floor.
But I shall ne'er forget the dress she wore,
Her looks, her words, the pleasing song she sung—
'Tis melody will charm me more and more,
'Tis music that will keep my spirit young,
'Tis joyance in my soul, though jarring on my tongue.
I've hummed the music after thee as well
As changing tones of youth allowed, and fear,
And vexing sprites that choke the upward swell.
But yet, perchance, some bosom it may cheer,
By recollection making thee more dear
To those who've drunk thy music at its spring,
To some, mayhap, who never learned to hear,—
Alas! poor, wretched souls!—its sound may bring
Some semblance of thy strain, some wish to hear thee sing.
What though I have expounded nothing new,
And traced, I trow, unworthily the old?
Song is no mystic science.—Men may do
Strange things in other spheres, and may unfold
Secrets unthought, tell tales before untold;
But what thou wilt, the bard; nor less, nor more.
And to the mind informed in Nature's mould
Thou has revealed thyself—the same of yore,
The same to-day thou art, and shalt be evermore.