Artemus of Michigan, The
As My Uncle Used to Say
At Utter Loaf
August
Autumn
Bedouin
Being His Mother
Blind
Blossoms on the Trees, The
By Any Other Name
By Her White Bed
Chant of the Cross-Bearing Child, The
Country Pathway, A
Cup of Tea, A
Curse of the Wandering Foot, The
Cyclone, The
Dan Paine
Dawn, Noon and Dewfall
Discouraging Model, A
Ditty of No Tone, A
Don Piatt of Mac-o-chee
Dot Leedle Boy
Dream of Autumn, A
Elizabeth
Envoy
Farmer Whipple—Bachelor
Full Harvest, A
Glimpse of Pan, A
Go, Winter
Her Beautiful Eyes
Hereafter, The
His Mother's Way
His Vigil
Home at Night
Home-Going, The
Hoodoo, The
Hoosier Folk-Child, The
How John Quit the Farm
Iron Horse, The
Iry and Billy and Jo
Jack the Giant-Killer
Jap Miller
John Alden and Percilly
John Brown
John McKeen
Judith
June at Woodruff
Just to Be Good
Last Night—And This
Let Us Forget
Little Fat Doctor, The
Longfellow
Lounger, A
Monument for the Soldiers, A
Mr. What's-His-Name
My Friend
Nessmuk
North and South
Old Retired Sea Captain, The
Old Winters on the Farm
Old Year and the New, The
On the Banks o' Deer Crick
Out of Nazareth
Passing of A Heart, The
Plaint Human, The
Quarrel, The
Quiet Lodger, The
Reach Your Hand to Me
Right Here at Home
Rival, The
Rivals, The; or the Showman's Ruse
Robert Burns Wilson
Rose, The
September Dark
Shoemaker, The
Singer, The
Sister Jones's Confession
Sleep
Some Scattering Remarks of Bub's
Song of Long Ago, A
Southern Singer, A
Suspense
Thanksgiving
Their Sweet Sorrow
Them Flowers
To an Importunate Ghost
To Hear Her Sing
Tom Van Arden
To the Serenader
Tugg Martin
Twins, The
Wandering Jew, The
Watches of the Night, The
Water Color, A
We to Sigh Instead of Sing
What Chris'mas Fetched the Wigginses
When Age Comes On
Where-Away
While the Musician Played
Wife-Blesséd, The
Wraith of Summertime, A
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.
In wild meanderings o'er pasture wealth—
Erratic wanderings through dead'ning-lands,
Where sly old brambles, plucking me by stealth,
Put berries in my hands:
Or, the path climbs a boulder—wades a slough—
Or, rollicking through buttercups and flags,
Goes gaily dancing o'er a deep bayou
On old tree-trunks and snags:
Or, at the creek, leads o'er a limpid pool
Upon a bridge the stream itself has made,
With some Spring-freshet for the mighty tool
That its foundation laid.
I pause a moment here to bend and muse,
With dreamy eyes, on my reflection, where
A boat-backed bug drifts on a helpless cruise,
Or wildly oars the air,
As, dimly seen, the pirate of the brook—
The pike, whose jaunty hulk denotes his speed—
Swings pivoting about, with wary look
Of low and cunning greed.
Till, filled with other thought, I turn again
To where the pathway enters in a realm
Of lordly woodland, under sovereign reign
Of towering oak and elm.
A puritanic quiet here reviles
The almost whispered warble from the hedge,
And takes a locust's rasping voice and files
The silence to an edge.
In such a solitude my somber way
Strays like a misanthrope within a gloom
Of his own shadows—till the perfect day
Bursts into sudden bloom,
And crowns a long, declining stretch of space,
Where King Corn's armies lie with flags unfurled,
And where the valley's dint in Nature's face
Dimples a smiling world.
And lo! through mists that may not be dispelled,
I see an old farm homestead, as in dreams,
Where, like a gem in costly setting held,
The old log cabin gleams.
* * * * *
O darling Pathway! lead me bravely on
Adown your valley way, and run before
Among the roses crowding up the lawn
And thronging at the door,—
And carry up the echo there that shall
Arouse the drowsy dog, that he may bay
The household out to greet the prodigal
That wanders home to-day.
On the banks o' Deer Crick! There's the place fer me!—
Worter slidin' past ye jes as clair as it kin be:—
See yer shadder in it, and the shadder o' the sky,
And the shadder o' the buzzard as he goes a-lazein' by;
Shadder o' the pizen-vines, and shadder o' the trees—
And I purt'-nigh said the shadder o' the sunshine and the breeze!
Well—I never seen the ocean ner I never seen the sea:
On the banks o' Deer Crick's grand enough fer me!
On the banks o' Deer Crick—mild er two from town—
'Long up where the mill-race comes a-loafin' down,—
Like to git up in there—'mongst the sycamores—
And watch the worter at the dam, a-frothin' as she pours:
Crawl out on some old log, with my hook and line,
Where the fish is jes so thick you kin see 'em shine
As they flicker round yer bait, coaxin' you to jerk,
Tel yer tired ketchin' of 'em, mighty nigh, as work!
On the banks o' Deer Crick!—Allus my delight
Jes to be around there—take it day er night!—
Watch the snipes and killdees foolin' half the day—
Er these-'ere little worter-bugs skootin' ever'way!—
Snakefeeders glancin' round, er dartin' out o' sight;
And dew-fall, and bullfrogs, and lightnin'-bugs at night—
Stars up through the tree-tops—er in the crick below,—
And smell o' mussrat through the dark clean from the old b'y-o!
Er take a tromp, some Sund'y, say, 'way up to "Johnson's Hole,"
And find where he's had a fire, and hid his fishin' pole;
Have yer "dog-leg," with ye and yer pipe and "cut-and-dry"—
Pocketful o' corn-bred, and slug er two o' rye,—
Soak yer hide in sunshine and waller in the shade—
Like the Good Book tells us—"where there're none to make afraid!"
Well!—I never seen the ocean ner I never seen the sea—
On the banks o' Deer Crick's grand enough fer me!
Piped to the Spirit of John Keats.
Would that my lips might pour out in thy praise
A fitting melody—an air sublime,—
A song sun-washed and draped in dreamy haze—
The floss and velvet of luxurious rhyme:
A lay wrought of warm languors, and o'er-brimmed
With balminess, and fragrance of wild flowers
Such as the droning bee ne'er wearies of—
Such thoughts as might be hymned
To thee from this midsummer land of ours
Through shower and sunshine blent for very love.
Deep silences in woody aisles wherethrough
Cool paths go loitering, and where the trill
Of best-remembered birds hath something new
In cadence for the hearing—lingering still
Through all the open day that lies beyond;
Reaches of pasture-lands, vine-wreathen oaks,
Majestic still in pathos of decay,—
The road—the wayside pond
Wherein the dragonfly an instant soaks
His filmy wing-tips ere he flits away.
And I would pluck from out the dank, rich mould,
Thick-shaded from the sun of noon, the long
Lithe stalks of barley, topped with ruddy gold,
And braid them in the meshes of my song;
And with them I would tangle wheat and rye,
And wisps of greenest grass the katydid
Ere crept beneath the blades of, sulkily,
As harvest-hands went by;
And weave of all, as wildest fancy bid,
A crown of mingled song and bloom for thee.
Low hidden in among the forest trees
An artist's tilted easel, ankle-deep
In tousled ferns and mosses, and in these
A fluffy water-spaniel, half asleep
Beside a sketch-book and a fallen hat—
A little wicker flask tossed into that.
A sense of utter carelessness and grace
Of pure abandon in the slumb'rous scene,—
As if the June, all hoydenish of face,
Had romped herself to sleep there on the green,
And brink and sagging bridge and sliding stream
Were just romantic parcels of her dream.
So lone I stood, the very trees seemed drawn
In conference with themselves.—Intense—intense
Seemed everything;—the summer splendor on
The sight,—magnificence!
A babe's life might not lighter fail and die
Than failed the sunlight—Though the hour was noon,
The palm of midnight might not lighter lie
Upon the brow of June.
With eyes upraised, I saw the underwings
Of swallows—gone the instant afterward—
While from the elms there came strange twitterings,
Stilled scarce ere they were heard.
The river seemed to shiver; and, far down
Its darkened length, I saw the sycamores
Lean inward closer, under the vast frown
That weighed above the shores.
Then was a roar, born of some awful burst!—
And one lay, shrieking, chattering, in my path—
Flung—he or I—out of some space accurst
As of Jehovah's wrath:
Nor barely had he wreaked his latest prayer,
Ere back the noon flashed o'er the ruin done,
And, o'er uprooted forests touseled there,
The birds sang in the sun.
O the Lands of Where-Away!
Tell us—tell us—where are they?
Through the darkness and the dawn
We have journeyed on and on—
From the cradle to the cross—
From possession unto loss,—
Seeking still, from day to day,
For the lands of Where-Away.
When our baby-feet were first
Planted where the daisies burst,
And the greenest grasses grew
In the fields we wandered through,
On, with childish discontent,
Ever on and on we went,
Hoping still to pass, some day,
O'er the verge of Where-Away.
Roses laid their velvet lips
On our own, with fragrant sips;
But their kisses held us not,
All their sweetness we forgot;—
Though the brambles in our track
Plucked at us to hold us back—
"Just ahead," we used to say,
"Lie the Lands of Where-Away."
Children at the pasture-bars,
Through the dusk, like glimmering stars,
Waved their hands that we should bide
With them over eventide:
Down the dark their voices failed
Falteringly, as they hailed,
And died into yesterday—
Night ahead and—Where-Away?
Twining arms about us thrown—
Warm caresses, all our own,
Can but stay us for a spell—
Love hath little new to tell
To the soul in need supreme,
Aching ever with the dream
Of the endless bliss it may
Find in Lands of Where-Away!
We must get home—for we have been away
So long it seems forever and a day!
And O so very homesick we have grown,
The laughter of the world is like a moan
In our tired hearing, and its songs as vain,—
We must get home—we must get home again!