THE bees in the clover are making honey, and I am making my hay: The air is fresh, I seem to draw a young man's breath to-day. The bees and I are alone in the grass: the air is so very still I hear the dam, so loud, that shines beyond the sullen mill. Yes, the air is so still that I hear almost the sounds I cannot hear That, when no other sound is plain, ring in my empty ear: The chime of striking scythes, the fall of the heavy swaths they sweepThey ring about me, resting, when I waver half asleep; So still, I am not sure if a cloud, low down, unseen there be, Or if something brings a rumor home of the cannon so far from me: Far away in Virginia, where Joseph and Grant, I know, Will tell them what I meant when first I had my mowers go! Joseph, he is my eldest one, the only boy of my three Whose shadow can darken my door again, and lighten my heart for me. Joseph, he is my eldest how his scythe was striking ahead! William was better at shorter heats, but Jo in the long run led. William, he was my youngest; John, between them I somehow see, When my eyes are shut, with a little board at his head in Tennessee. But William came home one morning early, from Gettysburg, last July, (The mowing was over already, although the only mower was I): William, my captain, came home for good to his mother; and I'll be bound We were proud and cried to see the flag that wrapt his coffin around; For a company from the town came up ten miles with music and gun: It seemed his country claimed him thenas well as his mother her son. But Joseph is yonder with Grant to-day, a thousand miles or near, And only the bees are broad at work with me in the clover here. Was it a murmur of thunder I heard that hummed again in the air? Yet, may be, the cannon are sounding now their Onward to Richmond there. I put my question to the flower: I put my question to the Root. "I mine the earth content," it said, "A hidden miner underfoot: I know a Rose is overhead." TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN STERN be the pilot in the dreadful hour When a great nation, like a ship at sea With the wroth breakers whitening at her lee, Feels her last shudder if her helmsman cower; A godlike manhood be his mighty dower! On Time's calm ledger out of passionate days With the pure debt of gratitude begun, 1862. FARTHER (THE SUGGESTED DEVICE OF A NEW WESTERN STATE) FAR-OFF a young State rises, full of might: I paint its brave escutcheon. Near at hand See the log-cabin in the rough clearing stand; A woman by its door, with steadfast sight, Trustful, looks Westward, where, uplifted bright, Some city's Apparition, weird and grand, Motionless on the burning cloud afar: · I loved to lie through sunny afternoons With half-shut eyes (familiar then with things Long unfamiliar, knowing Fairyland Using my kinship in those earlier days And, oftentimes, I lay in breezy shade Till, creeping with the loving stealth he takes In healthy temperaments, the blessed Sleep (Thrice blessed and thrice blessing now, because Of sleepless things that will not give us rest!) Came with his weird processions that wore dreams All happy masks - blithe fairies numberless, Forever passing, never more to pass, And all the leaves in sultry languor lay His holiday, and I am prisoned close In his harsh service, mastered by his Hours, The leaves have not forgotten me: behold, They play with me like children who, awake, Find one most dear asleep and waken him To their own gladness from his sultry "Awake and see it done," Spake his great voice at dawn. Oh, miracle That glittered in the sun! "Find me the princess fit for my embrace, The vision of my breast; For her search every clime and every race." My yearning arms were blessed! "Get me all knowledge." Sages with their lore, And poets with their songs, "Now bring me wisdom." Long ago he went; (The cold task harder seems:) He did not hasten with the last content The rest, meanwhile, were dreams! Houseless and poor, on many a trackless road, Without a guide, I found A white-haired phantom with the world his load, Bending him to the ground! |