CORN.

II

21

I TO-DAY the woods are trembling through and through

With shimmering forms, that flash before my view,
Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.
The leaves that wave against my cheek caress
Like women's hands; the embracing boughs ex-
press

A subtlety of mighty tenderness;

The copse-depths into little noises start,
That sound anon like beatings of a heart,
Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.

The beech dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a
song;

Through that vague wafture, expirations strong
Throb from young hickories breathing deep and
long

With stress and urgence bold of prisoned spring
And ecstasy of burgeoning.

Now, since the dew-plashed road of morn is dry,
Forth venture odors of more quality

And heavenlier giving. Like Jove's locks awry,
Long muscadines

Rich-wreathe the spacious foreheads of great pines,
And breathe ambrosial passion from their vines.
I pray with mosses, ferns, and flowers shy
That hide like gentle nuns from human eye
To lift adoring perfumes to the sky.

I hear faint bridal-sighs of brown and green
Dying to silent hints of kisses keen

As far lights fringe into a pleasant sheen.

I start at fragmentary whispers, blown
From undertalks of leafy souls unknown,

Vague purports sweet, of inarticulate tone. Dreaming of gods, men, nuns, and brides, between Old companies of oaks that inward lean

To join their radiant amplitudes of green

I slowly move, with ranging looks that pass
Up from the matted miracles of grass
Into yon veined complex of space
Where sky and leafage interlace

So close, the heaven of blue is seen
Inwoven with a heaven of green.

I wander to the zigzag-cornered fence
Where sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense,
Contests with stolid vehemence

The march of culture, setting limb and thorn
As pikes against the army of the corn.

There, while I pause, my fieldward-faring eyes
Take harvests, where the stately corn-ranks rise,
Of inward dignities

And large benignities and insights wise,
Graces and modest majesties.

Thus, without theft, I reap another's field;

Thus, without tilth, I house a wondrous yield,

31

4I

And heap my heart with quintuple crops concealed. 51

Look, out of line one tall corn-captain stands
Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands,
And waves his blades upon the very edge
And hottest thicket of the battling hedge.

Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk,

Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublime
That leads the vanward of his timid time

And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme— Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to grow 61 By double increment, above, below;

71

Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee,
Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalry

That moves in gentle curves of courtesy ;
Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense,
By every godlike sense

Transmuted from the four wild elements.

Drawn to high plans,

Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal man's, Yet ever piercest downward in the mould

And keepest hold

Upon the reverend and steadfast earth

That gave thee birth;

Yea, standest smiling in thy future grave,
Serene and brave,

With unremitting breath

Inhaling life from death,

Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent,
Thyself thy monument.

As poets should,

81 Thou hast built up thy hardihood

With universal food,

Drawn in select proportion fair

From honest mould and vagabond air;
From darkness of the dreadful night,
And joyful light;

From antique ashes, whose departed flame
In thee has finer life and longer fame;

From wounds and balms,

From storms and calms,

From potsherds and dry bones

And ruin-stones.

Into thy vigorous substance thou hast wrought
Whate'er the hand of Circumstance hath brought;
Yea, into cool solacing green hast spun
White radiance hot from out the sun.

So thou dost mutually leaven

Strength of earth with grace of heaven;
So thou dost marry new and old

Into a one of higher mould;

So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold,
The dark and bright,

And many a heart-perplexing opposite,

And so,

Akin by blood to high and low,
Fitly thou playest out thy poet's part,
Richly expending thy much-bruiséd heart
In equal care to nourish lord in hall
Or beast in stall:

Thou took'st from all that thou mightst give to all.

O steadfast dweller on the selfsame spot
Where thou wast born, that still repinest not-
Type of the home-fond heart, the happy lot!—
Deeply thy mild content rebukes the land

Whose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sand
Of trade, for ever rise and fall

With alternation whimsical,
Enduring scarce a day,

Then swept away

By swift engulfments of incalculable tides

121 Whereon capricious Commerce rides.
Look, thou substantial spirit of content!
Across this little vale, thy continent,

To where, beyond the mouldering mill,
Yon old deserted Georgian hill
Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest
And seamy breast,

By restless-hearted children left to lie
Untended there beneath the heedless sky,
As barbarous folk expose their old to die.
131 Upon that generous-rounding side,
With gullies scarified

Where keen Neglect his lash hath plied,
Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at toil,
And gave to coquette Cotton soul and soil.

Scorning the slow reward of patient grain,
He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain,
Then sat him down and waited for the rain.
He sailed in borrowed ships of usury—

A foolish Jason on a treacherous sea, 141 Seeking the Fleece and finding misery.

Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle trance
He lay, content that unthrift Circumstance
Should plough for him the stony field of Chance.
Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might
tell,

He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell,
And turned each field into a gambler's hell.
Aye, as each year began,

My farmer to the neighboring city ran;
Passed with a mournful anxious face

151 Into the banker's inner place;

Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace;