Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems

Excerpt

GREEN FIELDS AND RUNNING BROOKS

  Ho! green fields and running brooks!
  Knotted strings and fishing-hooks
  Of the truant, stealing down
  Weedy backways of the town.

  Where the sunshine overlooks,
  By green fields and running brooks,
  All intruding guests of chance
  With a golden tolerance,

  Cooing doves, or pensive pair
  Of picnickers, straying there—
  By green fields and running brooks,
  Sylvan shades and mossy nooks!

  And—O Dreamer of the Days,
  Murmurer of roundelays
  All unsung of words or books,
  Sing green fields and running brooks!

  I come upon it suddenly, alone—
    A little pathway winding in the weeds
  That fringe the roadside; and with dreams my own,
    I wander as it leads.

  Full wistfully along the slender way,
    Through summer tan of freckled shade and shine,
  I take the path that leads me as it may—
    Its every choice is mine.

  A chipmunk, or a sudden-whirring quail,
    Is startled by my step as on I fare—
  A garter-snake across the dusty trail
    Glances and—is not there.

  Above the arching jimson-weeds flare twos
    And twos of sallow-yellow butterflies,
  Like blooms of lorn primroses blowing loose
    When autumn winds arise.

  The trail dips—dwindles—broadens then, and lifts
    Itself astride a cross-road dubiously,
  And, from the fennel marge beyond it, drifts
    Still onward, beckoning me.

  And though it needs must lure me mile on mile
    Out of the public highway, still I go,
  My thoughts, far in advance in Indian-file,
    Allure me even so.

  Why, I am as a long-lost boy that went
    At dusk to bring the cattle to the bars,
  And was not found again, though Heaven lent
    His mother ail the stars

  With which to seek him through that awful night.
    O years of nights as vain!—Stars never rise
  But well might miss their glitter in the light
    Of tears in mother-eyes!

  So—on, with quickened breaths, I follow still—
    My avant-courier must be obeyed!
  Thus am I led, and thus the path, at will,
    Invites me to invade

  A meadow's precincts, where my daring guide
    Clambers the steps of an old-fashioned stile,
  And stumbles down again, the other side,
    To gambol there awhile

  In pranks of hide-and-seek, as on ahead
    I see it running, while the clover-stalks
  Shake rosy fists at me, as though they said—
    "You dog our country-walks

  And mutilate us with your walking-stick!—
    We will not suffer tamely what you do
  And warn you at your peril,—for we'll sic
    Our bumble-bees on you!"

  But I smile back, in airy nonchalance,—
    The more determined on my wayward quest,
  As some bright memory a moment dawns
    A morning in my breast—

  Sending a thrill that hurries me along
    In faulty similes of childish skips,
  Enthused with lithe contortions of a song
    Performing on my lips....