Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Pipe blown through by the warm wild | Motionless, with heaped canvas drooping

breath of the West

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

The winds into his pulses. Hush! 't is he!

My oriole, my glance of summer fire,
Is come at last, and, ever on the watch,
Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly
wound

About the bough help his housekeep-
Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing
ing,
his luck,

Yet fearing me who laid it in his way, Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs, Divines the providence that hides and helps.

Heave, ho! Heave, ho! he whistles as the twine

Slackens its hold; once more, now! and a flash

Lightens across the sunlight to the elm

Where his mate dangles at her cup of | Their roots, like molten metal cooled in felt.

[blocks in formation]

Within his tent as if I were a bird,
Or other free companion of the earth,
Yet undegenerate to the shifts of men.
Among them one, an ancient willow,
spreads

Eight balanced limbs, springing at once all round

His deep-ridged trunk with upward slant diverse,

In outline like enormous beaker, fit For hand of Jotun, where mid snow and mist

He holds unwieldy revel. This tree, spared,

I know not by what grace,- for in the blood

Of our New World subduers lingers yet Hereditary feud with trees, they being (They and the red-man most) our fathers' foes,

Is one of six, a willow Pleiades, The seventh fallen, that lean along the brink

Where the steep upland dips into the marsh,

flowing,

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Till it possessed me wholly, and thought ceased,

Or was transfused in something to which thought

Is coarse and dull of sense. Myself was lost,

Gone from me like an ache, and what remained

Became a part of the universal joy. My soul went forth, and, mingling with the tree,

Danced in the leaves; or, floating in the cloud,

Saw its white double in the stream below;

Or else, sublimed to purer ecstasy,
Dilated in the broad blue over all.
I was the wind that dappled the lush
grass,

The tide that crept with coolness to its roots,

The thin-winged swallow skating on the air;

The life that gladdened everything was

mine.

[blocks in formation]
« ZurückWeiter »