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Read Ebook: Poems of Nature Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems Complete Volume II of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier by Whittier John Greenleaf
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Ebook has 1632 lines and 103611 words, and 33 pages
He's whittling by St. Mary's Falls, Upon his loaded wain; He's measuring o'er the Pictured Rocks, With eager eyes of gain.
I hear the mattock in the mine, The axe-stroke in the dell, The clamor from the Indian lodge, The Jesuit chapel bell!
I see the swarthy trappers come From Mississippi's springs; And war-chiefs with their painted brows, And crests of eagle wings.
Behind the scared squaw's birch canoe, The steamer smokes and raves; And city lots are staked for sale Above old Indian graves.
I hear the tread of pioneers Of nations yet to be; The first low wash of waves, where soon Shall roll a human sea.
The rudiments of empire here Are plastic yet and warm; The chaos of a mighty world Is rounding into form!
Each rude and jostling fragment soon Its fitting place shall find,-- The raw material of a State, Its muscle and its mind!
And, westering still, the star which leads The New World in its train Has tipped with fire the icy spears Of many a mountain chain.
The snowy cones of Oregon Are kindling on its way; And California's golden sands Gleam brighter in its ray!
Then blessings on thy eagle quill, As, wandering far and wide, I thank thee for this twilight dream And Fancy's airy ride!
Yet, welcomer than regal plumes, Which Western trappers find, Thy free and pleasant thoughts, chance sown, Like feathers on the wind.
Thy symbol be the mountain-bird, Whose glistening quill I hold; Thy home the ample air of hope, And memory's sunset gold!
In thee, let joy with duty join, And strength unite with love, The eagle's pinions folding round The warm heart of the dove!
So, when in darkness sleeps the vale Where still the blind bird clings The sunshine of the upper sky Shall glitter on thy wings!
APRIL.
"The spring comes slowly up this way." Christabel.
'T is the noon of the spring-time, yet never a bird In the wind-shaken elm or the maple is heard; For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow, And blowing of drifts where the crocus should blow; Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white, On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the light, O'er the cold winter-beds of their late-waking roots The frosty flake eddies, the ice-crystal shoots; And, longing for light, under wind-driven heaps, Round the boles of the pine-wood the ground-laurel creeps, Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of showers, With buds scarcely swelled, which should burst into flowers We wait for thy coming, sweet wind of the south! For the touch of thy light wings, the kiss of thy mouth; For the yearly evangel thou bearest from God, Resurrection and life to the graves of the sod! Up our long river-valley, for days, have not ceased The wail and the shriek of the bitter northeast, Raw and chill, as if winnowed through ices and snow, All the way from the land of the wild Esquimau, Until all our dreams of the land of the blest, Like that red hunter's, turn to the sunny southwest. O soul of the spring-time, its light and its breath, Bring warmth to this coldness, bring life to this death; Renew the great miracle; let us behold The stone from the mouth of the sepulchre rolled, And Nature, like Lazarus, rise, as of old! Let our faith, which in darkness and coldness has lain, Revive with the warmth and the brightness again, And in blooming of flower and budding of tree The symbols and types of our destiny see; The life of the spring-time, the life of the whole, And, as sun to the sleeping earth, love to the soul!
PICTURES
Light, warmth, and sprouting greenness, and o'er all Blue, stainless, steel-bright ether, raining down Tranquillity upon the deep-hushed town, The freshening meadows, and the hillsides brown; Voice of the west-wind from the hills of pine, And the brimmed river from its distant fall, Low hum of bees, and joyous interlude Of bird-songs in the streamlet-skirting wood,-- Heralds and prophecies of sound and sight, Blessed forerunners of the warmth and light, Attendant angels to the house of prayer, With reverent footsteps keeping pace with mine,-- Once more, through God's great love, with you I share A morn of resurrection sweet and fair As that which saw, of old, in Palestine, Immortal Love uprising in fresh bloom From the dark night and winter of the tomb!
White with its sun-bleached dust, the pathway winds Before me; dust is on the shrunken grass, And on the trees beneath whose boughs I pass; Frail screen against the Hunter of the sky, Who, glaring on me with his lidless eye, While mounting with his dog-star high and higher Ambushed in light intolerable, unbinds The burnished quiver of his shafts of fire. Between me and the hot fields of his South A tremulous glow, as from a furnace-mouth, Glimmers and swims before my dazzled sight, As if the burning arrows of his ire Broke as they fell, and shattered into light; Yet on my cheek I feel the western wind, And hear it telling to the orchard trees, And to the faint and flower-forsaken bees, Tales of fair meadows, green with constant streams, And mountains rising blue and cool behind, Where in moist dells the purple orchis gleams, And starred with white the virgin's bower is twined. So the o'erwearied pilgrim, as he fares Along life's summer waste, at times is fanned, Even at noontide, by the cool, sweet airs Of a serener and a holier land, Fresh as the morn, and as the dewfall bland. Breath of the blessed Heaven for which we pray, Blow from the eternal hills! make glad our earthly way!
SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE
LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE.
White clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep, Light mists, whose soft embraces keep The sunshine on the hills asleep!
O isles of calm! O dark, still wood! And stiller skies that overbrood Your rest with deeper quietude!
O shapes and hues, dim beckoning, through Yon mountain gaps, my longing view Beyond the purple and the blue,
To stiller sea and greener land, And softer lights and airs more bland, And skies,--the hollow of God's hand!
Transfused through you, O mountain friends! With mine your solemn spirit blends, And life no more hath separate ends.
I read each misty mountain sign, I know the voice of wave and pine, And I am yours, and ye are mine.
Life's burdens fall, its discords cease, I lapse into the glad release Of Nature's own exceeding peace.
O welcome calm of heart and mind! As falls yon fir-tree's loosened rind To leave a tenderer growth behind,
So fall the weary years away; A child again, my head I lay Upon the lap of this sweet day.
This western wind hath Lethean powers, Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers, The lake is white with lotus-flowers!
Even Duty's voice is faint and low, And slumberous Conscience, waking slow, Forgets her blotted scroll to show.
The Shadow which pursues us all, Whose ever-nearing steps appall, Whose voice we hear behind us call,--
That Shadow blends with mountain gray, It speaks but what the light waves say,-- Death walks apart from Fear to-day!
Rocked on her breast, these pines and I Alike on Nature's love rely; And equal seems to live or die.
Assured that He whose presence fills With light the spaces of these hills No evil to His creatures wills,
The simple faith remains, that He Will do, whatever that may be, The best alike for man and tree.
What mosses over one shall grow, What light and life the other know, Unanxious, leaving Him to show.
Yon mountain's side is black with night, While, broad-orbed, o'er its gleaming crown The moon, slow-rounding into sight, On the hushed inland sea looks down.
How start to light the clustering isles, Each silver-hemmed! How sharply show The shadows of their rocky piles, And tree-tops in the wave below!
How far and strange the mountains seem, Dim-looming through the pale, still light The vague, vast grouping of a dream, They stretch into the solemn night.
Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale, Hushed by that presence grand and grave, Are silent, save the cricket's wail, And low response of leaf and wave.
Fair scenes! whereto the Day and Night Make rival love, I leave ye soon, What time before the eastern light The pale ghost of the setting moon
Shall hide behind yon rocky spines, And the young archer, Morn, shall break His arrows on the mountain pines, And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake!
Farewell! around this smiling bay Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom, With lighter steps than mine, may stray In radiant summers yet to come.
But none shall more regretful leave These waters and these hills than I Or, distant, fonder dream how eve Or dawn is painting wave and sky;
How rising moons shine sad and mild On wooded isle and silvering bay; Or setting suns beyond the piled And purple mountains lead the day;
Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy, Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here, Shall add, to life's abounding joy, The charmed repose to suffering dear.
Still waits kind Nature to impart Her choicest gifts to such as gain An entrance to her loving heart Through the sharp discipline of pain.
Forever from the Hand that takes One blessing from us others fall; And, soon or late, our Father makes His perfect recompense to all!
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