FABLE. THE mountain and the squirrel Had a quarrel; And the former called the latter 'Little Prig'; Bun replied, 'You are doubtless very big; But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together, To make up a year And I think it no disgrace To occupy my place. If I'm not so large as you, I'll not deny you make A very pretty squirrel track; Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, TWO RIVERS. THY summer voice, Musketaquit, But sweeter rivers pulsing flit Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain. Thou in thy narrow banks art pent: Through flood and sea and firmament; Through light, through life, it forward flows. I see the inundation sweet, I hear the spending of the stream Through years, through men, through nature fleet, Through love and thought, through power and dream. Musketaquit, a goblin strong, Of shard and flint makes jewels gay; So forth and brighter fares my stream, WALDEINSAMKEIT. I Do not count the hours I spend In plains that room for shadows make Bound in by streams which give and take Or on the mountain-crest sublime, Or down the oaken glade, O what have I to do with time? For this the day was made. Cities of mortals woe-begone But in the serious landscape lone Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy, There the great Planter plants And with a million spells enchants Still on the seeds of all he made The rose of beauty burns; Through times that wear, and forms that fade, Immortal youth returns. The black ducks mounting from the lake, The pigeon in the pines, The bittern's boom, a desert make Which no false art refines. Down in yon watery nook, The gray old gods whom Chaos knew, The sires of Nature, hide. Aloft, in secret veins of air, Blows the sweet breath of song, O, few to scale those uplands dare, Though they to all belong! See thou bring not to field or stone Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, To brave the landscape's looks. Oblivion here thy wisdom is, SONG OF NATURE. MINE are the night and morning, The pits of air, the gulf of space, The sportive sun, the gibbous moon, The innumerable days. I hide in the solar glory, I am dumb in the pealing song, I rest on the pitch of the torrent, No numbers have counted my tallies, I sit by the shining Fount of Life, And ever by delicate powers Gathering along the centuries From race on race the rarest flowers, My wreath shall nothing miss. And many a thousand summers |