"Our sweet illusions only die Fulfilling love's sure prophecy; And every wish for better things An undreamed beauty nearer brings.
"For fate is servitor of love; Desire and hope and longing prove The secret of immortal youth, And Nature cheats us into truth.
"O kind allurers, wisely sent, Beguiling with benign intent, Still move us, through divine unrest, To seek the loveliest and the best!
"Go with us when our souls go free, And, in the clear, white light to be, Add unto Heaven's beatitude The old delight of seeking good!"
1878.
THE TRAILING ARBUTUS
I wandered lonely where the pine-trees made Against the bitter East their barricade, And, guided by its sweet Perfume, I found, within a narrow dell, The trailing spring flower tinted like a shell Amid dry leaves and mosses at my feet.
From under dead boughs, for whose loss the pines Moaned ceaseless overhead, the blossoming vines Lifted their glad surprise, While yet the bluebird smoothed in leafless trees His feathers ruffled by the chill sea-breeze, And snow-drifts lingered under April skies.
As, pausing, o'er the lonely flower I bent, I thought of lives thus lowly, clogged and pent, Which yet find room, Through care and cumber, coldness and decay, To lend a sweetness to the ungenial day And make the sad earth happier for their bloom.
1879.
ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER.
This name in some parts of Europe is given to the season we call Indian Summer, in honor of the good St. Martin. The title of the poem was suggested by the fact that the day it refers to was the exact date of that set apart to the Saint, the 11th of November.
Though flowers have perished at the touch Of Frost, the early comer, I hail the season loved so much, The good St. Martin's summer.
O gracious morn, with rose-red dawn, And thin moon curving o'er it!
The old year's darling, latest born, More loved than all before it!
How flamed the sunrise through the pines!
How stretched the birchen shadows, Braiding in long, wind-wavered lines The westward sloping meadows!
The sweet day, opening as a flower Unfolds its petals tender, Renews for us at noontide's hour The summer's tempered splendor.
The birds are hushed; alone the wind, That through the woodland searches, The red-oak's lingering leaves can find, And yellow plumes of larches.
But still the balsam-breathing pine Invites no thought of sorrow, No hint of loss from air like wine The earth's content can borrow.
The summer and the winter here Midway a truce are holding, A soft, consenting atmosphere Their tents of peace enfolding.
The silent woods, the lonely hills, Rise solemn in their gladness; The quiet that the valley fills Is scarcely joy or sadness.
How strange! The autumn yesterday In winter's grasp seemed dying; On whirling winds from skies of gray The early snow was flying.
And now, while over Nature's mood There steals a soft relenting, I will not mar the present good, Forecasting or lamenting.
My autumn time and Nature's hold A dreamy tryst together, And, both grown old, about us fold The golden-tissued weather.
I lean my heart against the day To feel its bland caressing; I will not let it pass away Before it leaves its blessing.
God's angels come not as of old The Syrian shepherds knew them; In reddening dawns, in sunset gold, And warm noon lights I view them.
Nor need there is, in times like this When heaven to earth draws nearer, Of wing or song as witnesses To make their presence clearer.
O stream of life, whose swifter flow Is of the end forewarning, Methinks thy sundown afterglow Seems less of night than morning!
Old cares grow light; aside I lay The doubts and fears that troubled; The quiet of the happy day Within my soul is doubled.
That clouds must veil this fair sunshine Not less a joy I find it; Nor less yon warm horizon line That winter lurks behind it.
The mystery of the untried days I close my eyes from reading; His will be done whose darkest ways To light and life are leading!
Less drear the winter night shall be, If memory cheer and hearten Its heavy hours with thoughts of thee, Sweet summer of St. Martin!
1880.
STORM ON LAKE ASQUAM.
A cloud, like that the old-time Hebrew saw On Carmel prophesying rain, began To lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan, Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a flaw
Of chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beat Down the long valley's murmuring pines, and woke The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and broke Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains' feet.
Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined darkness swept Over the rough pine-bearded Asquam range; A wraith of tempest, wonderful and strange, From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped.
One moment, as if challenging the storm, Chocorua's tall, defiant sentinel Looked from his watch-tower; then the shadow fell, And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form.
And over all the still unhidden sun, Weaving its light through slant-blown veils of rain, Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles on pain; And, when the tumult and the strife were done,
With one foot on the lake and one on land, Framing within his crescent's tinted streak A far-off picture of the Melvin peak, Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned.
1882.
A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE.
To kneel before some saintly shrine, To breathe the health of airs divine, Or bathe where sacred rivers flow, The cowled and turbaned pilgrims go.
I too, a palmer, take, as they With staff and scallop-shell, my way To feel, from burdening cares and ills, The strong uplifting of the hills.