EVENING SONG

Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands,
And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea,
How long they kiss in sight of all the lands.
Ah! longer, longer, we.

5 Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun,
As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine,
And Cleopatra night drinks all. 'Tis done,
Love, lay thine hand in mine.

10

Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart;
Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands.
O night! divorce our sun and sky apart,

1876.

Never our lips, our hands.

5

10

SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE

OUT of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,

I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side

With a lover's pain to attain the plain

Far from the hills of Habersham,

Far from the valleys of Hall.

All down the hills of Habersham,

All through the valleys of Hall,

The rushes cried Abide, abide,

The willful waterweeds held me thrall,
The laving laurel turned my tide,

The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay,
The dewberry dipped for to work delay,
And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide,
Here in the hills of Habersham,
Here in the valleys of Hall.

High o'er the hills of Habersham,

Veiling the valleys of Hall,

The hickory told me manifold
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall

Wrought me her shadowy self to hold,
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,
Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold

Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,
These glades in the valleys of Hall.

And oft in the hills of Habersham,

And oft in the valleys of Hall,

The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone

Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,

And many a luminous jewel lone

-Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,

Ruby, garnet and amethyst

Made lures with the lights of streaming stone
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,

In the beds of the valleys of Hall.

40

But oh, not the hills of Habersham,

And oh, not the valleys of Hall
Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.
Downward the voices of Duty call-

45 Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,

50

And the lordly main from beyond the plain
Calls o'er the hills of Habersham,

Calls through the valleys of Hall.

1877.

THE MOCKING BIRD

SUPERB and sole, upon a pluméd spray
That o'er the general leafage boldly grew,
He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew
The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay
5 Of languid doves when long their lovers stray,
And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew
At morn in brake or bosky avenue.

Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say.
Then down he shot, bounced airily along

10 The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song
Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again.
Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain:
How may the death of that dull insect be
The life of yon trim Shakspere on the tree?

TAMPA ROBINS

THE robin laughed in the orange-tree:
"Ho, windy North, a fig for thee:
While breasts are red and wings are bold
And green trees wave us globes of gold,

Time's scythe shall reap but bliss for me
-Sunlight, song, and the orange-tree.

Burn, golden globes in leafy sky,
My orange-planets: crimson I

Will shine and shoot among the spheres
(Blithe meteor that no mortal fears)
And thrid the heavenly orange-tree
With orbits bright of minstrelsy.

If that I hate wild winter's spite-
The gibbet trees, the world in white,
The sky but gray wind over a grave—
Why should I ache, the season's slave?
I'll sing from the top of the orange-tree
Gramercy, winter's tyranny.

I'll south with the sun, and keep my clime;
My wing is king of the summer-time;
My breast to the sun his torch shall hold;
And I'll call down through the green and gold
Time, take thy scythe, reap bliss for me,
Bestir thee under the orange-tree."

TAMPA, FLA., 1877.

10

15

20

THE REVENGE OF HAMISH

Ir was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay;

And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,
Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran

Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way.

5 Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest doe;

10

15

In the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern
She reared, and rounded her ears in turn.

Then the buck leapt up, and his head as a king's to a crown did go

Full high in the breeze, and he stood as if Death had the form of a deer;

And the two slim does long lazily stretching arose, For their day-dream slowlier came to a close, Till they woke and were still, breath-bound with waiting and wonder and fear.

Then Alan the huntsman sprang over the hillock, the hounds shot by,

The does and the ten-tined buck made a marvellous bound,

The hounds swept after with never a sound,

But Alan loud winded his horn in sign that the quarry was nigh.