Even the brook that leaps along,
Seems weary of its bubbling song,
And so soft its waters creep,
Tired silence sinks in sounder sleep;
The cricket on its bank is dumb,
The very flies forget to hum;
And, save the wagon rocking round,
The landscape sleeps without a sound.
The breeze is stopp'd, the lazy bough
Hath not a leaf that danceth now;
The taller grass upon the hill,
And spider's threads are standing still;
The feathers dropp'd from moorhen's wing,
Which to the water's surface cling,
Are steadfast, and as heavy seem,
As stones beneath them in the stream;
Hawkweed and groundsel's fanny downs
Unruffled keep their seedy crowns;
And in the oven-heated air
Not one light thing is floating there,
Save that to the earnest eye
The restless heat seems twittering by.
Noon swoons beneath the heat it made,
And flowers e'en within the shade,
Until the sun slopes in the west
Like weary traveler, glad to rest
On pillow'd clouds of many hues ;
Then Nature's voice its joy renews,
And checkered field and grassy plain,
Hum with their summer songs again,
A requiem to the day's decline,
Whose setting sunbeams coolly shine,
As welcome to day's feeble powers,
As falling dews to thirsty flowers.
A power is on the earth and in the air,
From which the vital spirit shrinks afraid, And shelters him in nooks of deepest shade, From the hot steam, and from the fiery glare. Look forth upon the earth-her thousand plants
Are smitten; even the dark sun-loving maize
Faints in the field beneath the torrid blaze
The herd beside the shaded fountain pants;
For life is driven from all the landscape brown;
The bird has sought his tree, the snake his den,
The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and men
Drop by the sun-stroke in the populous town,
As if the Day of Fire had dawned and sent
Its deadly breath into the firmament.
An August day! a dreamy haze
Films air, and mingles with the skies,
Sweetly the rich, dark sunshine plays,
Bronzing each object where it lies.
Outlines are melted in the gauze
That Nature vails; the fitful breeze
From the thick pine low murmuring draws,
Then dies in flutterings midst the trees.
The bee is slumbering in the thistle,
And, now and then, a broken whistle,
A tread-a hum-a tap-is heard
Through the dry leaves, in grass and bush,
As insect, animal, and bird
Rouse brief from their lethargic hush.
Then e'en these pleasant sounds would cease,
And a dread stillness all things lock:
The aspen seem like sculptured rock,
And not a tassel thread be shaken,
The monarch pine's deep trance to waken,
And Nature settle prone in drowsy peace.
The misty blue-the distant masses,
The air in woven purple glimmering
The shiver transiently that passes
Over the leaves, as though each tree
Gave one brief sigh-the slumberous shimmering
Of the red light-invested seem
With some sweet charm, that soft, serene,
Mellows the gold-the blue-the green
Into mild temper'd harmony,
And melts the sounds that intervene,
As scarce to break the quiet, till we deem
Nature herself transform'd to Fancy's dream.
Most sweetly smiling with attemper'd beams,
Sheds gently down a mild and grateful warmth;
Beneath its yellow luster groves and woods,
Checker'd by one night's frost with various hues,
While yet no wind has swept a leaf away,
Shine doubly rich. It were a sad delight
Down the smooth stream to glide, and see it tinged
Upon each brink with all the gorgeous hues,
The yellow, red, or purple of the trees
That, singly, or in tufts, or forests thick,
Adorn the shores; to see, perhaps, the side
Of some high mount reflected far below,
With its bright colors, intermixed with spots
Of darker green. Yes, it were sweetly sad
To wander in the open fields, and hear,
E'en at this hour, the noonday hardly past,
The lulling insects of the summer's night;
To hear, where lately buzzing swarms were heard,
A lonely bee, long roving here and there
To find a single flower, but all in vain ;
Then rising quick, and with a louder hum,
In widening circles round and round his head,
Straight by the listener flying clear away,
As if to bid the fields a last adieu;
To hear, within the woodland's sunny side,
Late full of music, nothing, save perhaps
The sound of nutshells, by the squirrel dropp'd
From some tall beech, fast falling through the leaves.
CARLOS WILCOX, 1794-1827.
Ay, thou art welcome, Heaven's delicious breath,
When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,
And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief,
And the year smiles as it draws near its death.
Wind of the sunny south! oh still delay
In the gay woods and in the golden air,
Like to a good old age released from care,
Journeying, in long serenity, away.
In such a bright, late quiet, would that I
Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks,
And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,
And music of kind voices ever nigh;
And when my last sand twinkled in the glass
Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.
Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapory air,
Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run,
Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze
Nods lonely, of the beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And men delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.
November's sky is chill and drear,
November's leaf is red and sree;
Late, gazing down the steepy linn,
That hems our little garden in,
Low in its dark and narrow glen,
You scarce the rivulet might ken,
So thick the tangled greenwood grew,
So feeble trill'd the streamlet through;
Now murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen
Through bush and brier, no longer green,
An angry brook, it sweeps the glade,
Brawls over rock and wild cascade,
And, foaming brown with double speed,
Hurries its waters to the Tweed.
No longer Autumn's glowing red
Upon our forest hills is shed;
No more, beneath the evening beam,
Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam;
Away hath pass'd the heather-bells,
That bloom'd so rich on Needpath-fell,
Sallow his brow, and russet bare,
Are now the sister heights of Yair.
The sheep, before the pinching heaven,
To shelter'd dale and down are driven,
Where yet some faded herbage pines,
And yet a watery sunbeam shines;
In meek despondency they eye
The withered sward and wintry sky,
And far beneath their summer hill,
Stray sadly by Glenkinnon's rill:
The shepherd shifts his mantle's fold,
And wraps him closer from the cold;
His dogs no merry circles wheel,
But, shivering, follow at his heel;
A cowering glance they often cast,
As deeper moans the gathering blast.
No sun-no moon!
No morn-no noon
-no dusk—no proper time of day-
No sky-no earthly view-
No distance, looking blue
No road-no street-no t'other side the way
No end to any "row"
No indications where the
No top to any steeple
No recognitions of familiar people--
No courtesies for showing 'em—
No knowing 'em!—
No traveling at all-no locomotion
No inkling of the way--no notion
No go," by land or ocean
No mail-no post
No news from any foreign coast
|