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THE WORLD TRANSFORMED
UNWARMED by any sunset light | |
| The gray day darkened into night, | |
| A night made hoary with the swarm | |
| And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, | |
| As zigzag, wavering to and fro, | 5 |
| Crossed and recrossed the wingëd snow: | |
| And ere the early bedtime came | |
| The white drift piled the window-frame, | |
| And through the glass the clothes-line posts | |
| Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. | 10 |
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| So all night long the storm roared on: | |
| The morning broke without a sun; | |
| In tiny spherule traced with lines | |
| Of Nature’s geometric signs, | |
| In starry flake, and pellicle, | 15 |
| All day the hoary meteor fell; | |
| And, when the second morning shone, | |
| We looked upon a world unknown, | |
| On nothing we could call our own. | |
| Around the glistening wonder bent | 20 |
| The blue walls of the firmament, | |
| No cloud above, no earth below,— | |
| A universe of sky and snow! | |
| The old familiar sights of ours | |
| Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers | 25 |
| Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, | |
| Or garden-wall, or belt of wood; | |
| A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, | |
| A fenceless drift what once was road; | |
| The bridle-post an old man sat | 30 |
| With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat; | |
| The well-curb had a Chinese roof; | |
| And even the long sweep, high aloof, | |
| In its slant splendor, seemed to tell | |
| Of Pisa’s loaning miracle. | 35 |
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FIRELIGHT
SHUT in from all the world without, | |
| We sat the clean-winged hearth about, | |
| Content to let the north-wind roar | |
| In baffled rage at pane and door, | |
| While the red logs before us beat | 40 |
| The frost-line back with tropic heat; | |
| And ever, when a louder blast | |
| Shook beam and rafter as it passed, | |
| The merrier up its roaring draught | |
| The great throat of the chimney laughed; | 45 |
| The house-dog on his paws outspread | |
| Laid to the fire his drowsy head, | |
| The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall | |
| A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall; | |
| And, for the winter fireside meet, | 50 |
| Between the andirons’ straddling feet, | |
| The mug of cider simmered slow, | |
| The apples sputtered in a row, | |
| And, close at hand, the basket stood | |
| With nuts from brown October’s wood. | 55 |
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| What matter how the night behaved? | |
| What matter how the north-wind raved? | |
| Blow high, blow low, not all its snow | |
| Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow. | |
| O Time and Change!—with hair as gray | 60 |
| As was my sire’s that winter day, | |
| How strange it seems, with so much gone | |
| Of life and love, to still live on! | |
| Ah, brother! only I and thou | |
| Are left of all that circle now,— | 65 |
| The dear home faces whereupon | |
| That fitful firelight paled and shone. | |
| Henceforward, listen as we will, | |
| The voices of that hearth are still; | |
| Look where we may, the wide earth o’er, | 70 |
| Those lighted faces smile no more. | |
| We tread the paths their feet have worn, | |
| We sit beneath their orchard-trees, | |
| We hear, like them, the hum of bees | |
| And rustle of the bladed corn; | 75 |
| We turn the pages that they read, | |
| Their written words we linger o’er, | |
| But in the sun they cast no shade, | |
| No voice is heard, no sign is made, | |
| No step is on the conscious floor! | 80 |
| Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, | |
| (Since He who knows our need is just,) | |
| That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. | |
| Alas for him who never sees | |
| The stars shine through his cypress-trees! | 85 |
| Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, | |
| Nor looks to see the breaking day | |
| Across the mournful marbles play! | |
| Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, | |
| The truth to flesh and sense unknown, | 90 |
| That Life is ever lord of Death, | |
| And Love can never lose its own! | |
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MOTHER
Our mother, while she turned her wheel | |
| Or run the new-knit stocking-heel, | |
| Told how the Indian hordes came down | 95 |
| At midnight on Cocheco town, | |
| And how her own great-uncle bore | |
| His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. | |
| Recalling, in her fitting phrase, | |
| So rich and picturesque and free, | 100 |
| (The common unrhymed poetry | |
| Of simple life and country ways,) | |
| The story of her early days,— | |
| She made us welcome to her home; | |
| Old hearths grew wide to give us room; | 105 |
| We stole with her a frightened look | |
| At the gray wizard’s conjuring-book, | |
| The fame whereof went far and wide | |
| Through all the simple country-side; | |
| We heard the hawks at twilight play, | 110 |
| The boat-horn on Piscataqua, | |
| The loon’s weird laughter far away; | |
| We fished her little trout-brook, knew | |
| What flowers in wood and meadow grew, | |
| What sunny hillsides autumn-brown | 115 |
| She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down, | |
| Saw where in sheltered cove and bay | |
| The ducks’ black squadron anchored lay, | |
| And heard the wild geese calling loud | |
| Beneath the gray November cloud. | 120 |
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SISTER
AS one who held herself a part | |
| Of all she saw, and let her heart | |
| Against the household bosom lean, | |
| Upon the motley-braided mat | |
| Our youngest and our dearest sat, | 125 |
| Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, | |
| Now bathed in the unfading green | |
| And holy peace of Paradise. | |
| Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, | |
| Or from the shade of saintly palms, | 130 |
| Or silver reach of river calms, | |
| Do those large eyes behold me still? | |
| With me one little year ago:— | |
| The chill weight of the winter snow | |
| For months upon her grave has lain; | 135 |
| And now, when summer south-winds blow | |
| And brier and harebell bloom again, | |
| I tread the pleasant paths we trod, | |
| I see the violet-sprinkled sod | |
| Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak | 140 |
| The hillside flowers she loved to seek, | |
| Yet following me where’er I went | |
| With dark eyes full of love’s content. | |
| The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills | |
| The air with sweetness; all the hills | 145 |
| Stretch green to June’s unclouded sky; | |
| But still I wait with ear and eye | |
| For something gone which should be nigh, | |
| A loss all familiar things, | |
| In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. | 150 |
| And yet, dear heart! remembering thee, | |
| Am I not richer than of old? | |
| Safe in thy immortality, | |
| What change can reach the wealth I hold? | |
| What chance can mar the pearl and gold | 155 |
| Thy love hath left in trust with me? | |
| And while in life’s late afternoon, | |
| Where cool and long the shadows grow, | |
| I walk to meet the night that soon | |
| Shall shape and shadow overflow, | 160 |
| I cannot feel that thou art far, | |
| Since near at need the angels are; | |
| And when the sunset gates unbar, | |
| Shall I not see thee waiting stand, | |
| And, white against the evening star, | 165 |
| The welcome of thy beckoning hand? | |
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PROPHETESS
ANOTHER guest that winter night | |
| Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. | |
| Unmarked by time, and yet not young, | |
| The honeyed music of her tongue | 170 |
| And words of meekness scarcely told | |
| A nature passionate and bold, | |
| Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide, | |
| Its milder features dwarfed beside | |
| Her unbent will’s majestic pride. | 175 |
| She sat among us, at the best, | |
| A not unfeared, half-welcome guest, | |
| Rebuking with her cultured phrase | |
| Our homeliness of words and ways. | |
| A certain pard-like, treacherous grace | 180 |
| Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash, | |
| Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash; | |
| And under low brows, black with night, | |
| Rayed out at times a dangerous light; | |
| The sharp heat-lightnings of her face | 185 |
| Presaging ill to him whom Fate | |
| Condemned to share her love or hate. | |
| A woman tropical, intense | |
| In thought and act, in soul and sense, | |
| She blended in a like degree | 190 |
| The vixen and the devotee, | |
| Revealing with each freak or feint | |
| The temper of Petruchio’s Kate, | |
| The raptures of Siena’s saint. | |
| Her tapering hand and rounded wrist | 195 |
| Had facile power to form a fist; | |
| The warm, dark languish of her eyes | |
| Was never safe from wrath’s surprise. | |
| Brows saintly calm and lips devout | |
| Knew every change of scowl and pout; | 200 |
| And the sweet voice had notes more high | |
| And shrill for social battle-cry. | |
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| Since then what old cathedral town | |
| Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, | |
| What convent-gate has held its lock | 205 |
| Against the challenge of her knock! | |
| Through Smyrna’s plague-hushed thorough-fares, | |
| Up sea-set Malta’s rocky stairs, | |
| Gray olive slopes of hills that hem | |
| Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, | 210 |
| Or startling on her desert throne | |
| The crazy Queen of Lebanon | |
| With claims fantastic as her own, | |
| Her tireless feet have held their way; | |
| And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, | 215 |
| She watches under Eastern skies, | |
| With hope each day renewed and fresh, | |
| The Lord’s quick coming in the flesh, | |
| Whereof she dreams and prophesies! | |
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