Of heaven slowly climbed. The gray sea grew By one who in his hand a lamp doth hold, More bright the East became, the ocean Dark and more dark against the brightening sky THE VOICE OF THE PINE 'T IS night upon the lake. Our bed of boughs Is built where, high above, the pine-tree soughs. 'Tis still and yet what woody noises loom Just shaken from a branch, how large it sounded, As 'gainst our canvas roof its three drops bounded! Across the rumpling waves the hoot-owl's bark Tolls forth the midnight hour upon the dark. What mellow booming from hills doth come? The mountain quarry strikes its mighty drum. Long had we lain beside our pine-wood fire, From things of sport our talk had risen higher. How frank and intimate the words of men When tented lonely in some forest glen! No dallying now with masks, from whence emerges Scarce one true feature forth. The night-wind urges To straight and simple speech. So we had thought Unreasoned longings that, from child to child, Then to our hemlock beds, but not to sleep. Or like the sea that breaks upon the shore — It took a human sound. These words I felt "Heardst thou these wanderers reasoning of a time When men more near the Eternal One shall climb ? A SONG OF EARLY AUTUMN HEN late in summer the streams run yellow, Burst the bridges and spread into bays; When berries are black and peaches are mellow, And hills are hidden by rainy haze; When the goldenrod is golden still, But the heart of the sunflower is darker and sadder; When the corn is in stacks on the slope of the hill, When butterflies flutter from clover to thicket, Grasshopper's rasp, and rustle of sheaf. When high in the field the fern-leaves wrinkle, mown; When low in the meadow the cow-bells tinkle, And small brooks crinkle o'er stock and stone. When heavy and hollow the robin's whistle And shadows are deep in the heat of noon; When the air is white with the down o' the thistle, And the sky is red with the harvest moon; Oh then be chary, young Robert and Mary, If the fiddle would play it must stop its tuning, Let the churn rattle, see well to the cattle, "GREAT NATURE IS AN ARMY GAY" By Richard Watson Gilder G REAT nature is an army gay, I hear the tread of million feet. Across the plain I see it pour; It swarms within my garden gate; Still through the night and through the livelong day The infinite army marches on its remorseless way. DECEMBER By Joel Benton HEN the feud of hot and cold Leaves the autumn woodlands bare; When the year is getting old, And flowers are dead, and keen When the crow has new concern, The squirrel from a chuckling throat |