THE UPLAND
We often go a-driving across the pleasant land,
In summer through the pine woods dark, or by the ocean strand;
But when the orchards blossom, and when the apples fall,
We seek the high hill country that props the mountain wall.
Old farms with mossed stone fences, old grassy roads that wind
Forever on and upward to higher fields behind,
By ancient bush-grown pastures, bestrewn with boulders gray,
And lonely meadow slopes that bear thin crops of upland hay.
As, terrace over terrace, we climb the mountain stair,
More solitary grow the ways, more wild the farms and rare,
And slenderer in their rocky beds the singing brooks that go
Down-slipping to the valley stream a thousand feet below.
Above us and above us still the grim escarpments rise,
Till homeward we must turn at last, or ere the daylight dies,
And leave unscaled the summit height, the even ridge o'erhead,
Where smolder through the cedar screen the sunset embers red.
What should we see, if once we won on that top step to stand?
A wondrous valley world beyond? A far-stretched tableland?
Almost it seems as though there lay the threshold of the sky,
And that the foot which crossed that sill would enter Heaven thereby.
And when, dear heart, the years have left us once again alone,
And from our empty nest the broods have scattered forth and flown,
Shall we not have the old horse round and take the well-known track
Into the high hill country, and never more come back?
THE REMAINDER
Now faith is dead and hope is deadly sick,
And joy—dear joy—she died so long ago
I have forgot her face; but these are quick,
Black care, and stinging shame, and bitter woe.
Then what is left in my Pandora's chest?
Courage is left, but mated with despair,
Who should have wed with hope. Yet be ye blest—
Rise up and take your blessing, happy pair!
I lay in thine, sad bride, this princely hand—
In all the world there is no nobler name—
And thou, brave groom—though 'tis not what we planned—
Take her, she will be true: be thou the same.
Courage and sorrow: might these two give birth?
O thought too bold, O dream too sweet, too wild?
Though joy—dear joy—be dead and cold in earth,
Her ghost is peace, and love is sorrow's child.
THE PASTURE BARS
The hunted stag, now nearly spent,
Turns homeward to his lair:
The wounded Bedouin seeks his tent
And finds safe shelter there.
So life returns upon its track:
We toil, we fight, we roam,
Till the long shadows point us back,
And evening brings us home.
To-night beside the pasture bars
I heard the whippoorwill,
While, one by one, the early stars
Came out above the hill.
I heard the tinkle of the spring,
I heard the cattle pass
Slow through the dusk, and lingering
To crop the wayside grass.
O weary world of fret and strife,
O noisy years and vain,
What have you paid me for my life
Since last, along this lane,
A barefoot boy, I drove the cows
In summer twilights still,
And paused beneath the orchard boughs
To list the whippoorwill?
Come, peace of God, that passeth all
Our understanding's sight:
Fall on me with the dews that fall,
And with the falling night.
Among these native hills and plains,
By these baptismal streams,
Wash off the city's fever stains,
Bring back my boyhood's dreams.
Beside the doors where life began
Here let it find its close;
And be its brief, remaining span
All given to repose.
THE RISING OF THE CURTAIN
We sit before the curtain, and we heed the pleasant bustle:
The ushers hastening up the aisles, the fans' and programmes' rustle;
The boy that cries librettos, and the soft, incessant sound
Of talking and low laughter that buzzes all around.
How very old the drop-scene looks! A thousand times before
I've seen that blue paint dashing on that red distemper shore;
The castle and the guazzo sky, the very ilex-tree,—
They have been there a thousand years,—a thousand more shall be.
All our lives we have been waiting for that weary daub to rise;
We have peeped behind its edges, "as if we were God's spies;"
We have listened for the signal; yet still, as in our youth,
The colored screen of matter hangs between us and the truth.
When in my careless childhood I dwelt beside a wood,
I tired of the clearing where my father's cabin stood;
And of the wild young forest paths that coaxed me to explore,
Then dwindled down, or led me back to where I stood before.
But through the woods before our door a wagon track went by,
Above whose utmost western edge there hung an open sky;
And there it seemed to make a plunge, or break off suddenly,
As though beneath that open sky it met the open sea.
Oh, often have I fancied, in the sunset's dreamy glow,
That mine eyes had caught the welter of the ocean waves below;
And the wind among the pine-tops, with its low and ceaseless roar,
Was but an echo from the surf on that imagined shore.
Alas! as I grew older, I found that road led down
To no more fair horizon than the squalid factory town:
So all life's purple distances, when nearer them I came,
Have played me still the same old cheat,—the same, the same, the same!
And when, O King, the heaven departeth as a scroll,
Wilt thou once more the promise break thou madest to my soul?
Shall I see thy feasting presence thronged with baron, knight, and page?
Or will the curtain rise upon a dark and empty stage?
For lo, quick undulations across the canvas run;
The foot-lights brighten suddenly, the orchestra has done;
And through the expectant silence rings loud the prompter's bell;
The curtain shakes,—it rises. Farewell, dull world, farewell!