Poems. William Dean Howells

Come hither, thou little maiden, And sit upon my knee; And I will tell thee a story I read in a book of rhyme; I will but fain that it happened To me, one summer-time, 23 When we walked through the meadow, And she and I were young. The story is old and weary With being said and sung. The story is old and weary: Ah, child! it is known to thee. Who was it that last night kissed thee Under the cherry-tree? VI. Like a bird of evil presage, To the lonely house on the shore Came the wind with a tale of shipwreck, And shrieked at the bolted door, And flapped its wings in the gables, And shouted the well-known names, And buffeted the windows Afeard in their shuddering frames. It was night, and it is morning,–– The summer sun is bland, The white-cap waves come rocking, rocking, In to the summer land. The white-cap waves come rocking, rocking, In the sun so soft and bright, 24 And toss and play with the dead man Drowned in the storm last night. VII. I remember the burning brushwood, Glimmering all day long Yellow and weak in the sunlight, Now leaped up red and strong, And fired the old dead chestnut, That all our years had stood, Gaunt and gray and ghostly, Apart from the sombre wood; And, flushed with sudden summer, The leafless boughs on high Blossomed in dreadful beauty Against the darkened sky. We children sat telling stories, And boasting what we should be, When we were men like our fathers, And watched the blazing tree, That showered its fiery blossoms, Like a rain of stars, we said, Of crimson and azure and purple. That night, when I lay in bed, 25 I could not sleep for seeing, Whenever I closed my eyes, The tree in its dazzling splendor Against the darkened skies. I cannot sleep for seeing, With closéd eyes to-night, The tree in its dazzling splendor Dropping its blossoms bright; And old, old dreams of childhood Come thronging my weary brain, Dear, foolish beliefs and longings: I doubt, are they real again? It is nothing, and nothing, and nothing, That I either think or see: The phantoms of dead illusions To-night are haunting me.

      26

IN AUGUST.

       Table of Contents

All the long August afternoon, The little drowsy stream Whispers a melancholy tune, As if it dreamed of June And whispered in its dream. The thistles show beyond the brook Dust on their down and bloom, And out of many a weed-grown nook The aster-flowérs look With eyes of tender gloom. The silent orchard aisles are sweet With smell of ripening fruit. Through the sere grass, in shy retreat, Flutter, at coming feet, The robins strange and mute. There is no wind to stir the leaves, The harsh leaves overhead; Only the querulous cricket grieves, And shrilling locust weaves A song of Summer dead.

      27

THE EMPTY HOUSE.

       Table of Contents

The wet trees hang above the walks Purple with damps and earthish stains, And strewn by moody, absent rains With rose-leaves from the wild-grown stalks. Unmown, in heavy, tangled swaths, The ripe June-grass is wanton blown; Snails slime the untrodden threshold-stone; Along the sills hang drowsy moths. Down the blank visage of the wall, Where many a wavering trace appears, Like a forgotten trace of tears, From swollen eaves the slow drops crawl. Where everything was wide before, The curious wind, that comes and goes, Finds all the latticed windows close, Secret and close the bolted door. And with the shrewd and curious wind, That in the archéd doorway cries, 28 And at the bolted portal tries, And harks and listens at the blind,–– Forever lurks my thought about, And in the ghostly middle-night Finds all the hidden windows bright, And sees the guests go in and out, And lingers till the pallid dawn, And feels the mystery deeper there In silent, gust-swept chambers, bare, With all the midnight revel gone; But wanders through the lonesome rooms, Where harsh the astonished cricket calls, And, from the hollows of the walls Vanishing, start unshapen glooms; And lingers yet, and cannot come Out of the drear and desolate place, So full of ruin’s solemn grace, And haunted with the ghost of home.

      29

BUBBLES.

       Table of Contents

I. I stood on the brink in childhood, And watched the bubbles go From the rock-fretted, sunny ripple To the smoother tide below; And over the white creek-bottom, Under them every one, Went golden stars in the water, All luminous with the sun. But the bubbles broke on the surface, And under, the stars of gold Broke; and the hurrying water Flowed onward, swift and cold. II. I stood on the brink in manhood, And it came to my weary brain, And my heart, so dull and heavy After the years of pain,–– 30 That every hollowest bubble Which over my life had passed Still into its deeper current Some heavenly gleam had cast; That, however I mocked it gayly, And guessed at its hollowness, Still shone, with each bursting bubble, One star in my soul the less.

      31

LOST BELIEFS.

       Table of Contents

One after one they left us; The sweet birds out of our breasts Went flying away in the morning: Will they come again to their nests? Will they come again at nightfall, With God’s breath in their song? Noon is fierce with the heats of summer, And summer days are long! O my Life, with thy upward liftings, Thy downward-striking roots, Ripening out of thy tender blossoms But hard and bitter fruits!–– In thy boughs there is no shelter For the birds to seek again. The desolate nest is broken And torn with storms and rain!