304 THE WALK.-MAY MORNING. THE WALK. A QUEEN rejoices in her peers, MAY MORNING. WHO saw the hid beginnings I saw the hid beginnings When Chaos and Order strove, And I can date the morning prime And purple flame of love. Song breathed from all the forest, It seemed the world was all torches That suddenly caught the flame. Is there never a retroscope mirror In the realms and corners of space That can give us a glimpse of the battle And the soldiers face to face? Sit here on the basalt ranges When the purple flame shoots up, And every human heart Still keeps that golden day THE MIRACLE. I HAVE trod this path a hundred times Self-planted twice, like the banian. I know not why I came again Unless to learn it ten times-ten. To read the sense the woods impart You must bring the throbbing heart. Love is aye the counterforce, Terror and Hope and wild Remorse, Newest knowledge, fiery thought, Or Duty to grand purpose wrought. Wandering yester morn the brake, I reached this heath beside the lake, And oh, the wonder of the power, The deeper secret of the hour! Nature, the supplement of man, His hidden sense interpret can; What friend to friend cannot convey Shall the dumb bird instructed say. Passing yonder oak, I heard Sharp accents of my woodland bird; I watched the singer with delight, But mark what changed my joy to fright,When that bird sang, I gave the theme, That wood-bird sang my last night's dream, A brown wren was the Daniel That pierced my trance its drift to tell, THE WATERFALL.— WALDEN. THE WATERFALL. A PATCH of meadow upland Hither I come for strength Which well it can supply, For Love draws might from terrene force The tremulous battery Earth Responds to the touch of man; It thrills to the antipodes, From Boston to Japan. 307 WALDEN.1 IN my garden three ways meet, Hermit thrush comes there to build, Carrier doves to nest. There broad-armed oaks, the copses' maze, The cold sea-wind detain; 1 This poem represents the early form of My Garden, which, in years, grew from this beginning. Here sultry Summer over-stays Self-sown my stately garden grows; From mountains far and valleys near In cities high the careful crowds My quiet roses blow. Methought the sky looked scornful down On all was base in man, And airy tongues did taunt the town, "Achieve our peace who can!" What need I holier dew Than Walden's haunted wave, Distilled from heaven's alembic blue, Steeped in each forest cave? If Thought unlock her mysteries, |