Excerpt
PRELUDE.
ALONG the roadside, like the flowers of goldThat tawny Incas for their gardens wrought,Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod,And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowersHang motionless upon their upright staves.The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind,Vying-weary with its long flight from the south,Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leafWith faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams,Confesses it. The locust by the wallStabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm.A single hay-cart down the dusty roadCreaks slowly, with its driver fast asleepOn the load's top. Against the neighboring hill,Huddled along the stone wall's shady side,The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift stillDefied the dog-star. Through the open doorA drowsy smell of flowers-gray heliotrope,And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette—Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lendsTo the pervading symphony of peace.No time is this for hands long over-wornTo task their strength; and (unto Him be praiseWho giveth quietness!) the stress and strainOf years that did the work of centuriesHave ceased, and we can draw our breath once moreFreely and full. So, as yon harvestersMake glad their nooning underneath the elmsWith tale and riddle and old snatch of song,I lay aside grave themes, and idly turnThe leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'erOld summer pictures of the quiet hills,And human life, as quiet, at their feet.
And yet not idly all. A farmer's son,Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and feelingAll their fine possibilities, how richAnd restful even poverty and toilBecome when beauty, harmony, and loveSit at their humble hearth as angels satAt evening in the patriarch's tent, when manMakes labor noble, and his farmer's frockThe symbol of a Christian chivalryTender and just and generous to herWho clothes with grace all duty; still, I knowToo well the picture has another side,—How wearily the grind of toil goes onWhere love is wanting, how the eye and earAnd heart are starved amidst the plenitudeOf nature, and how hard and colorlessIs life without an atmosphere. I lookAcross the lapse of half a century,And call to mind old homesteads, where no flowerTold that the spring had come, but evil weeds,Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the placeOf the sweet doorway greeting of the roseAnd honeysuckle, where the house walls seemedBlistering in sun, without a tree or vineTo cast the tremulous shadow of its leavesAcross the curtainless windows, from whose panesFluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness.Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed(Broom-clean I think they called it); the best roomStifling with cellar damp, shut from the airIn hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless,Save the inevitable sampler hungOver the fireplace, or a mourning piece,A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneathImpossible willows; the wide-throated hearthBristling with faded pine-boughs half concealingThe piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back;And, in sad keeping with all things about them,Shrill, querulous-women, sour and sullen men,Untidy, loveless, old before their time,With scarce a human interest save their ownMonotonous round of small economies,Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood;Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed,Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet;For them the song-sparrow and the bobolinkSang not, nor winds made music in the leaves;For them in vain October's holocaustBurned, gold and crimson, over all the hills,The sacramental mystery of the woods....