FLOWERS IN WINTER
PAINTED UPON A PORTE LIVRE.
How strange to greet, this frosty morn, In graceful counterfeit of flowers, These children of the meadows, born Of sunshine and of showers!
How well the conscious wood retains The pictures of its flower-sown home, The lights and shades, the purple stains, And golden hues of bloom!
It was a happy thought to bring To the dark season's frost and rime This painted memory of spring, This dream of summer-time.
Our hearts are lighter for its sake, Our fancy's age renews its youth, And dim-remembered fictions take The guise of--present truth.
A wizard of the Merrimac,-- So old ancestral legends say, Could call green leaf and blossom back To frosted stem and spray.
The dry logs of the cottage wall, Beneath his touch, put out their leaves The clay-bound swallow, at his call, Played round the icy eaves.
The settler saw his oaken flail Take bud, and bloom before his eyes; From frozen pools he saw the pale, Sweet summer lilies rise.
To their old homes, by man profaned, Came the sad dryads, exiled long, And through their leafy tongues complained Of household use and wrong.
The beechen platter sprouted wild, The pipkin wore its old-time green The cradle o'er the sleeping child Became a leafy screen.
Haply our gentle friend hath met, While wandering in her sylvan quest, Haunting his native woodlands yet, That Druid of the West;
And, while the dew on leaf and flower Glistened in moonlight clear and still, Learned the dusk wizard's spell of power, And caught his trick of skill.
But welcome, be it new or old, The gift which makes the day more bright, And paints, upon the ground of cold And darkness, warmth and light.
Without is neither gold nor green; Within, for birds, the birch-logs sing; Yet, summer-like, we sit between The autumn and the spring.
The one, with bridal blush of rose, And sweetest breath of woodland balm, And one whose matron lips unclose In smiles of saintly calm.
Fill soft and deep, O winter snow!
The sweet azalea's oaken dells, And hide the bank where roses blow, And swing the azure bells!
O'erlay the amber violet's leaves, The purple aster's brookside home, Guard all the flowers her pencil gives A life beyond their bloom.
And she, when spring comes round again, By greening slope and singing flood Shall wander, seeking, not in vain, Her darlings of the wood.
1855.
THE MAYFLOWERS
The trailing arbutus, or mayflower, grows abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims after their fearful winter. The name mayflower was familiar in England, as the application of it to the historic vessel shows, but it was applied by the English, and still is, to the hawthorn. Its use in New England in connection with _Epigma repens _dates from a very early day, some claiming that the first Pilgrims so used it, in affectionate memory of the vessel and its English flower association.
Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars, And nursed by winter gales, With petals of the sleeted spars, And leaves of frozen sails!
What had she in those dreary hours, Within her ice-rimmed bay, In common with the wild-wood flowers, The first sweet smiles of May?
Yet, "God be praised!" the Pilgrim said, Who saw the blossoms peer Above the brown leaves, dry and dead, "Behold our Mayflower here!"
"God wills it: here our rest shall be, Our years of wandering o'er; For us the Mayflower of the sea Shall spread her sails no more."
O sacred flowers of faith and hope, As sweetly now as then Ye bloom on many a birchen slope, In many a pine-dark glen.
Behind the sea-wall's rugged length, Unchanged, your leaves unfold, Like love behind the manly strength Of the brave hearts of old.
So live the fathers in their sons, Their sturdy faith be ours, And ours the love that overruns Its rocky strength with flowers!
The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day Its shadow round us draws; The Mayflower of his stormy bay, Our Freedom's struggling cause.
But warmer suns erelong shall bring To life the frozen sod; And through dead leaves of hope shall spring Afresh the flowers of God!
1856.
THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN.
I.
O'er the bare woods, whose outstretched hands Plead with the leaden heavens in vain, I see, beyond the valley lands, The sea's long level dim with rain.
Around me all things, stark and dumb, Seem praying for the snows to come, And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone, With winter's sunset lights and dazzling morn atone.
II.
Along the river's summer walk, The withered tufts of asters nod; And trembles on its arid stalk The boar plume of the golden-rod.
And on a ground of sombre fir, And azure-studded juniper, The silver birch its buds of purple shows, And scarlet berries tell where bloomed the sweet wild-rose!
III.
With mingled sound of horns and bells, A far-heard clang, the wild geese fly, Storm-sent, from Arctic moors and fells, Like a great arrow through the sky, Two dusky lines converged in one, Chasing the southward-flying sun; While the brave snow-bird and the hardy jay Call to them from the pines, as if to bid them stay.
IV.
I passed this way a year ago The wind blew south; the noon of day Was warm as June's; and save that snow Flecked the low mountains far away, And that the vernal-seeming breeze Mocked faded grass and leafless trees, I might have dreamed of summer as I lay, Watching the fallen leaves with the soft wind at play.
V.
Since then, the winter blasts have piled The white pagodas of the snow On these rough slopes, and, strong and wild, Yon river, in its overflow Of spring-time rain and sun, set free, Crashed with its ices to the sea; And over these gray fields, then green and gold, The summer corn has waved, the thunder's organ rolled.
VI.
Rich gift of God! A year of time What pomp of rise and shut of day, What hues wherewith our Northern clime Makes autumn's dropping woodlands gay, What airs outblown from ferny dells, And clover-bloom and sweetbrier smells, What songs of brooks and birds, what fruits and flowers, Green woods and moonlit snows, have in its round been ours!
VII.
I know not how, in other lands, The changing seasons come and go; What splendors fall on Syrian sands, What purple lights on Alpine snow!
Nor how the pomp of sunrise waits On Venice at her watery gates; A dream alone to me is Arno's vale, And the Alhambra's halls are but a traveller's tale.
VIII.
Yet, on life's current, he who drifts Is one with him who rows or sails And he who wanders widest lifts No more of beauty's jealous veils Than he who from his doorway sees The miracle of flowers and trees, Feels the warm Orient in the noonday air, And from cloud minarets hears the sunset call to prayer!