Puslapio vaizdai
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NANTASKET.

FAIR is thy face, Nantasket,
And fair thy curving shores,-
The peering spires of villages,
The boatman's dipping oars,
The lonely ledge of Minot,

Beside the brook the gentian Closes its fringed eyes, And waits the later glory

Of October's yellow skies.

Within the sea-washed meadow The wild grape climbs the wall,

Where the watchman tends his And from the o'er-ripe chestnuts

light,

And sets his perilous beacon,
A star in the stormiest night.

Over thy vast sea highway,
The great ships slide from sight,
And flocks of winged phantoms
Flit by, like birds in flight.
Over the toppling sea-wall

The home-bound dories float, And I watch the patient fisherman Bend in his anchored boat.

I am alone with Nature;
With the glad September day.
The leaning hills above me
With golden-rod are gay,
Across the fields of ether
Flit butterflies at play,
And cones of garnet sumach
Glow down the country way.

The autumn dandelion

Along the roadside burns; Down from the lichened boulders Quiver the plumèd ferns; The cream-white silk of the milkweed Floats from its sea-green pod; Out from the mossy rock-seams Flashes the golden-rod.

The woodbine's scarlet banners

Flaunt from their towers of stone;
The wan, wild morning-glory
Dies by the road alone;

By the hill-path to the seaside
Wave myriad azure bells;

And over the grassy ramparts lean
The milky immortelles.

Hosts of gold-hearted daisies
Nod by the wayside bars;

The tangled thicket of green is set
With the aster's purple stars;

The brown burs softly fall. I see the tall reeds shiver Beside the salt sea marge; I see the sea-bird glimmer, Far out on airy barge.

I hear in the groves of Hingham
The friendly caw of the crow,
Till I sit again in Wachusett's woods,
In August's sumptuous glow.
The tiny boom of the beetle

Strikes the shining rocks below;
The gauzy oar of the dragon-fly
Is beating to and fro.

As the lovely ghost of the thistle
Goes sailing softly by;
Glad in its second summer
Hums the awakened fly;
The cumulate cry of the cricket
Pierces the amber noon;

In from the vast sea-spaces comes
The clear call of the loon;
Over and through it all I hear

Ocean's pervasive rune.

Against the warm sea-beaches

Rush the wavelets' eager lips;
Away o'er the sapphire reaches
Move on the stately ships.
Peace floats on all their pennons,
Sailing silently the main,
As if never human anguish,

As if never human pain,

Sought the healing draught of Lethe, Beyond the gleaming plain.

Fair is the earth behind me,
Vast is the sea before,
Away through the misty dimness
Glimmers a further shore.

It is no realm enchanted,

It cannot be more fair

Than this nook of Nature's Kingdom, With its spell of space and air.

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My wind has turned to bitter north,
That was so soft a south before:

My sky, that shone so sunny bright,
With foggy gloom is clouded o'er;
My gay green leaves are yellow-black
Upon the dark autumnal floor;
For love, departed once, comes back
No more again, no more.

A roofless ruin lies my home,

For winds to blow and rains to pour;

One frosty night befell-and lo!

I find my summer days are o'er. The heart bereaved,of why and how Unknowing, knows that yet before It had what e'en to memory now Returns no more, no more.

BECALMED AT EVE.

As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay With canvas drooping, side by side. Two towers of sail, at dawn of day

Are scarce long leagues apart descried;

When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,

And all the darkling hours they Nor dreamt but each the self-same plied;

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But O blithe breeze! and O great seas, Though ne'er that earliest parting past,

On your wide plain they join again, Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought

One purpose hold where'er they fare;

O bounding breeze, O rushing seas, At last, at last unite them there!

NATURA NATURANS.

BESIDE me,- in the car,- she sat; She spake not, no, nor looked to

me.

From her to me, from me to her,

What passed so subtly, stealthily? As rose to rose, that by it blows,

Its interchanged aroma flings; Or wake to sound of one sweet note The virtues of disparted strings.

Beside me, nought but this? - but this,

That influent; as within me dwelt Her life; mine too within her breast, Her brain, her every limb, she felt. We sat; while o'er and in us, more And more, a power unknown prevailed,

Inhaling and inhaled,- and still

'Twas one, inhaling or inhaled.

Beside me, nought but this; and passed

I passed; and know not to this day If gold or jet her girlish hair

If black, or brown, or lucid-gray Her eye's young glance. The fickle chance

That joined us yet may join again; But I no face again could greet

As hers, whose life was in me then.

As unsuspecting mere a maid

As fresh in maidhood's bloomiest bloom

In casual second-class did e'er

By casual youth her seat assume;

Or vestal, say, of saintliest clay,
For once by balmiest airs betrayed
Unto emotions too, too sweet
To be unlingeringly gainsaid.

Unowning then, confusing soon With dreamier dreams that o'er the glass

Of shyly ripening woman-sense
Reflected, scarce reflected, pass-
A wife may be, a mother, she

In Hymen's shrine recalls not now She first in hour, ah, not profane!With me to Hymen learnt to bow.

Ah no!-yet owned we, fused in one, The power which, e'en in stones and earths

By blind elections felt, in forms

Organic breeds to myriad births; By lichen small on granite wall Approved, its faintest, feeblest stir Slow-spreading, strengthening long, at last

Vibrated full in me and her.

In me and her

sensation strange! The lily grew to pendent head; To vernal airs the mossy bank Its sheeny primrose spangles spread; In roof o'er roof of shade sun-proof Did cedar strong itself outclimb; And altitude of aloe proud

Aspire in floral crown sublime;

Flashed flickering forth fantastic flies;

Big bees their burly bodies swung; Rooks roused with civic din the elms; And lark its wild reveillé rung; In Libyan dell the light gazelle,

The leopard lithe in Indian glade, And dolphin, brightening tropic seas, In us were living, leapt and played.

Their shells did slow crustacea build; Their gilded skins did snakes re

new;

While mightier spines for loftier kind Their types in amplest limbs outgrew:

Yea, close comprest in human breast, What moss, and tree, and livelier thing

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