Of heaven slowly climbed. The gray sea grew
Rose-colored like the sky. A white gull flew
Straight toward the utmost boundary of the East
Where slowly the rose gathered and increased.
There was light now, where all was black before.
It was as on the opening of a door

By one who in his hand a lamp doth hold,
(Its flame being hidden by the garment's fold) —
The still air moves, the wide room is less dim.

More bright the East became, the ocean
turned

Dark and more dark against the brightening sky
Sharper against the sky the long sea line.
The hollows of the breakers on the shore
Were green
like leaves whereon no sun doth shine,
Though sunlight make the outer branches hoar.
From rose to red the level heaven burned;
Then sudden, as if a sword fell from on high,
A blade of gold flashed on the ocean's rim.

THE VOICE OF THE PINE
By Richard Watson Gilder

'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
Against the background of the silent gloom!
One well might hear the opening of a flower
If day were hushed as this. A mimic shower

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
Aloud; no secrets but to light were brought.
The hid and spiritual hopes, the wild,

Unreasoned longings that, from child to child,
Mortals still cherish (though with modern shame)—
To these, and things like these, we gave a name;
And as we talked, the intense and resinous fire
Lit up the towering boles, till nigh and nigher
They gather round, a ghostly company,
Like beasts who seek to know what men may be.

Then to our hemlock beds, but not to sleep.
For listening to the stealthy steps that creep
About the tent, or falling branch, but most
A noise was like the rustling of a host,

Or like the sea that breaks upon the shore —
It was the pine-tree's murmur. More and more

It took a human sound. These words I felt
Into the skyey darkness float and melt:

"Heardst thou these wanderers reasoning of a

time

When men more near the Eternal One shall climb ?
How like the new-born child, who cannot tell
A mother's arm that wraps it warm and well!
Leaves of His rose; drops in His sea that flow, -
Are they, alas, so blind they may not know
Here, in this breathing world of joy and fear,
They can no nearer get to God than here."

A SONG OF EARLY AUTUMN
By Richard Watson Gilder

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,
And slides o'er the path the stripèd adder.

When butterflies flutter from clover to thicket,
Or wave their wings on the drooping leaf;
When the breeze comes shrill with the call of the
cricket,

Grasshopper's rasp, and rustle of sheaf.

When high in the field the fern-leaves wrinkle,
And brown is the grass where the mowers have

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,
No time let slip, not a moment wait!

If the fiddle would play it must stop its tuning,
And they who would wed must be done
with their mooning;

Let the churn rattle, see well to the cattle,
And pile the wood by the barn-yard gate!

"GREAT NATURE IS AN ARMY

GAY"

By Richard Watson Gilder

G

REAT nature is an army gay,
Resistless marching on its way;
I hear the bugles clear and sweet,

I hear the tread of million feet.

Across the plain I see it pour;
It tramples down the waving grass;
Within the echoing mountain-pass
I hear a thousand cannon roar.

It swarms within my garden gate;
My deepest well it drinketh dry.
It doth not rest; it doth not wait;
By night and day it sweepeth by ;
Ceaseless it marches by my door;
It heeds me not, though I implore.
I know not whence it comes, nor where
It goes.
For me it doth not carc
Whether I starve, or eat, or sleep,
Or live, or die, or sing, or weep.
And now the banners all are bright,
Now torn and blackened by the fight.
Sometimes its laughter shakes the sky,
Sometimes the groans of those who die.

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
the air;

When the crow has new concern,
And early sounds his raucous note;
And where the late witch-hazels burn

The squirrel from a chuckling throat