Now oar we through this willow fringe
The bulging shore that bosks, – a tinge
Of green mists down the marge; – where old,
Scarred cottonwoods build walls of shade
With breezy balsam pungent; bowled
Around vined trunks the floods have made
Concentric hollows. On we pass.
As we pass, we pass, we pass,
In daisy jungles deep as grass,
A bubbling sparrow flirts above
In wood-words with its woodland love:
A white-streaked woodpecker afar
Knocks: slant the sun dashed, each a star,
Three glittering jays flash over: slim
The piping sand-snipes skip and skim
Before us: and a finch or thrush —
Who may discover where such sing? —
The silence rinses with a gush
Of mellow music gurgling.
On we pass, and onward oar
To yon long lip of ragged shore,
Where from yon rock spouts, babbling frore
A ferny spring; where dodging by
Rests sulphur-disced that butterfly;
Mallows, rank crowded in for room,
'Mid wild bean and wild mustard bloom;
Where fishers 'neath those cottonwoods
Last Spring encamped those ashes say
And charcoal boughs. – 'T is long till buds! —
Here who in August misses May?
Here the shores are irised; grasses
Clump the water gray that glasses
Broken wood and deepened distance:
Far the musical persistence
Of a field-lark lingers low
In the west where tulips blow.
White before us flames one pointed
Star; and Day hath Night anointed
King; from out her azure ewer
Pouring starry fire, truer
Than true gold. Star-crowned he stands
With the starlight in his hands.
Will the moon bleach through the ragged
Tree-tops ere we reach yon jagged
Rock, that rises gradually?
Pharos of our homeward valley.
Down the dusk burns golden-red;
Embers are the stars o'erhead.
At my soul some Protean elf is:
You 're Simaetha, I am Delphis;
You are Sappho and her Phaon —
I. We love. There lies a ray on
All the dark Æolian seas
'Round the violet Lesbian leas.
On we drift. He loves you. Nearer
Looms our island. Rosier, clearer
The Leucadian cliff we follow,
Where the temple of Apollo
Lifts a pale and pillared fire —
Strike, oh, strike the Lydian lyre;
Out of Hellas blows the breeze
Singing to the Sapphic seas.
Night, Night, 't is night. The moon before to love us,
And all the moonlight tangled in the stream:
Love, love, my love, and all the stars above us,
The stars above and every star a dream.
In odorous purple, where the falling warble
Of water cascades and the plunged foam glows,
A columned ruin heaps its sculptured marble
Curled with the chiselled rebeck and the rose.
Sleep, Sleep, sweet Sleep sleeps at the drifting tiller,
And in our sail the Spirit of the Rain —
Love, love, my love, ah bid thy heart be stiller,
And, hark! the music of the harping main.
What flowers are those that blow their balm unto us?
Bow white their brows' aromas each a flame?
Ah, child, too kind the love we know, that knew us,
That kissed our eyes that we might see the same.
Night! night! good night! no dream it is to vanish,
The temple and the nightingale are there;
The thornless roses bruising none to banish,
The moon and one wild poppy in thy hair.
Night! night! good night! and love's own star before thee,
And love's star-image in the starry sea;
Yes, yes, ah yes! a presence to watch o'er thee —
Night! night! good night and good the gods to thee!
O simple offerings of the common hills;
Love's lowly names, that make you trebly sweet!
One Johnny-jump-up, but an apron-full
Of starry crowfoot, making mossy dells
Dim with heaven's morning blue; dew-dripping plumes
Of waxen "dog-mouths"; red the tippling cups
Of gypsy-lilies all along the creek,
Where dull the freckled silence sleeps, and dark
The water runs when, at high noon, the cows
Wade knee-deep and the heat hums drowsy with
The drone of dizzy flies; – one Samson-flower
Blue-streaked and crystal as a summer's cloud;
White violets, milk-weed, scarlet Indian-pinks,
All fragile-scented and familiar as
Pink baby faces and blue infant eyes.
O fair suggestions of a life more fair!
Love's fragrant whispers of an untaught faith,
High habitations 'neath a godlier blue
Beyond the sin of Earth, in heavens prepared —
What is it? – halcyon to utter calm,
Faith? such as wrinkled wisdom, doubting, has
Yearned for and sought in miser'd lore of worlds,
And vainly? – Love? – Oh, have I learned to live?
Would you have known it seeing it?
Could you have seen it being it?
Waving me out of the budding land
Sunbeam-jewelled a bloom-white hand,
Wafting