PROEM.
I CALL the old time back: I bring my lay in tender memory of the summer day When, where our native river lapsed away,
We dreamed it over, while the thrushes made Songs of their own, and the great pine-trees laid On warm noonlights the masses of their shade.
And she was with us, living o'er again Her life in ours, despite of years and pain,-- The Autumn's brightness after latter rain.
Beautiful in her holy peace as one Who stands, at evening, when the work is done, Glorified in the setting of the sun!
Her memory makes our common landscape seem Fairer than any of which painters dream; Lights the brown hills and sings in every stream;
For she whose speech was always truth's pure gold Heard, not unpleased, its simple legends told, And loved with us the beautiful and old.
I. THE RIVER VALLEY.
Across the level tableland, A grassy, rarely trodden way, With thinnest skirt of birchen spray
And stunted growth of cedar, leads To where you see the dull plain fall Sheer off, steep-slanted, ploughed by all
The seasons' rainfalls. On its brink The over-leaning harebells swing, With roots half bare the pine-trees cling;
And, through the shadow looking west, You see the wavering river flow Along a vale, that far below
Holds to the sun, the sheltering hills And glimmering water-line between, Broad fields of corn and meadows green,
And fruit-bent orchards grouped around The low brown roofs and painted eaves, And chimney-tops half hid in leaves.
No warmer valley hides behind Yon wind-scourged sand-dunes, cold and bleak; No fairer river comes to seek
The wave-sung welcome of the sea, Or mark the northmost border line Of sun-loved growths of nut and vine.
Here, ground-fast in their native fields, Untempted by the city's gain, The quiet farmer folk remain
Who bear the pleasant name of Friends, And keep their fathers' gentle ways And simple speech of Bible days;
In whose neat homesteads woman holds With modest ease her equal place, And wears upon her tranquil face
The look of one who, merging not Her self-hood in another's will, Is love's and duty's handmaid still.
Pass with me down the path that winds Through birches to the open land, Where, close upon the river strand
You mark a cellar, vine o'errun, Above whose wall of loosened stones The sumach lifts its reddening cones,
And the black nightshade's berries shine, And broad, unsightly burdocks fold The household ruin, century-old.
Here, in the dim colonial time Of sterner lives and gloomier faith, A woman lived, tradition saith,
Who wrought her neighbors foul annoy, And witched and plagued the country-side, Till at the hangman's hand she died.
Sit with me while the westering day Falls slantwise down the quiet vale, And, haply ere yon loitering sail,
That rounds the upper headland, falls Below Deer Island's pines, or sees Behind it Hawkswood's belt of trees
Rise black against the sinking sun, My idyl of its days of old, The valley's legend, shall be told.
II. THE HUSKING.
It was the pleasant harvest-time, When cellar-bins are closely stowed, And garrets bend beneath their load,
And the old swallow-haunted barns,-- Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams Through which the rooted sunlight streams,
And winds blow freshly in, to shake The red plumes of the roosted cocks, And the loose hay-mow's scented locks,
Are filled with summer's ripened stores, Its odorous grass and barley sheaves, From their low scaffolds to their eaves.
On Esek Harden's oaken floor, With many an autumn threshing worn, Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn.
And thither came young men and maids, Beneath a moon that, large and low, Lit that sweet eve of long ago.
They took their places; some by chance, And others by a merry voice Or sweet smile guided to their choice.
How pleasantly the rising moon, Between the shadow of the mows, Looked on them through the great elm-boughs!
On sturdy boyhood, sun-embrowned, On girlhood with its solid curves Of healthful strength and painless nerves!
And jests went round, and laughs that made The house-dog answer with his howl, And kept astir the barn-yard fowl;
And quaint old songs their fathers sung In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors, Ere Norman William trod their shores;
And tales, whose merry license shook The fat sides of the Saxon thane, Forgetful of the hovering Dane,--
Rude plays to Celt and Cimbri known, The charms and riddles that beguiled On Oxus' banks the young world's child,--
That primal picture-speech wherein Have youth and maid the story told, So new in each, so dateless old,
Recalling pastoral Ruth in her Who waited, blushing and demure, The red-ear's kiss of forfeiture.
But still the sweetest voice was mute That river-valley ever heard From lips of maid or throat of bird;
For Mabel Martin sat apart, And let the hay-mow's shadow fall Upon the loveliest face of all.