In Solitary Places

I.     The hurl and hurry of the winds of March,     That tore the ash and bowed the pine and larch,     Are past and done with: winds, that trampled through     The forests with enormous, scythe-like sweep,     And from the darkening deep,     The battlements of heaven, thunder-blue,     Rumbled the arch,     The rocking arch of all the booming oaks,     With stormy chariot-spokes;     Chariots from which wild bugle-blasts they blew,     Their warrior challenge.. .    Now the wind flower sweet     Misses the fury of their ruining feet,     The trumpet-thunder of resistless flight,     Crashing and vast, obliterating light;     Sweeping the skeleton cohorts down     Of last year's leaves; and, overhead,     Hurrying the giant foliage of night,     Gaunt clouds that streamed with tempest. Now each crown     Of woods that stooped to clamor of their tread,     The frenzy of their passage, stoops no more,     Hearing no more their clarion-command,     Their chariot-hurl and the wild whip in hand.     No more, no more,     The forests rock and roar     And tumult with their shoutings.. .    Hushed and still     Is the green-gleaming and the sunlit hill,     Along whose sides,     Flushing the dewy moss and rainy grass     Beneath the topaz-tinted sassafras,     As aromatic as some orient wine     The violet fire of the bluet glides,     The amaranthine flame     Glints of the bluebell; and the celandine,     Line upon lovely line,     Deliberate goldens into birth;     And, ruby and rose, the moccasin-flower hides:     Innumerable blooms, with which she writes her name,     April, upon the page,     The winter-withered parchment of old Earth,     Her fragrant autograph that gives it worth     And loveliness that takes away its age. II.     Here where the woods are wet,     The blossoms of the dog's-tooth violet     Seem meteors in a miniature firmament     Of wildflowers, where, with rainy sound and scent     Of breeze and blossom, soft the April went:     Their tongue-like leaves of umber-mottled green,     So thickly seen,     Seem dropping words of gold,     The visible syllables of a magic old.     Beside them, near the wahoo-bush and haw,     Blooms the hepatica;     Its slender flowers upon swaying stems     Lifting pale, solitary blooms,     Starry, and twilight-colored, like frail gems,     That star the diadems     Of sylvan spirits, piercing pale the glooms;     Or like the wands, the torches of the fays,     That light lone, woodland ways     With slim, uncertain rays:     (The faery people, whom no eye may see,     Busy, so legend says,     With budding bough and leafing tree,     The blossom's heart o' honey and honey-sack o' the bee,     And all dim thoughts and dreams,     That take the form of flowers, as it seems,     And haunt the banks of greenwood streams,     Showing in every line and curve,     Commensurate with our love, and intimacy,     A smiling confidence or sweet reserve.)     There at that leafy turn     Of trailered rocks, rise fronds of hart's-tongue fern:     Fronds that my fancy names     Uncoiling flames     Of feathering emerald and gold,     That, kindled in the musky mould,     Now, stealthily as the morn, unfold     Their cool green fires that burn     Uneagerly, and spread around     An elfin light above the ground,     Like that green glow     A spirit, lamped with crystal, makes below     In dripping caves of labyrinthine moss.     And in the underwoods, around them, toss     The white-hearts with their penciled leaves,     That 'mid the shifting gleams and glooms,     The interchanging shine and shade,     Seem some vague garment made     By unseen hands that weave, that none perceives;     Pale hands that work invisible looms,     Now dropping shreds of light,     Now shadow-shreds, that interbraid     And form faint colors mixed with frail perfumes.     Or, are they fragments left in flight,     These flowers that scatter every glade     With windy, beckoning white,     And breezy blowing blue,     Of her wild gown that shone upon my sight,     A moment, in the woods I wandered through?     April's, whom still I follow,     Whom still my dreams pursue;     Who leads me on by many a tangled clue     Of loveliness, until, in some green hollow,     Born of her fragrance and her melody,     But lovelier than herself and happier, too,     Cradled in blossoms of the dogwood-tree,     My soul shall see     White as a sunbeam in the heart of day     The infant, May. III.     Up, up, my Heart, and forth, where none perceives!     'T was this that that sweet lay meant     You heard in dreams.     Come, let us take rich payment,     For every care that grieves,     From Nature's prodigal purse.'T was this that May meant     By sending forth that wind which 'round our eaves     Whispered all night. Or was 't the Spirit who weaves,     From gold and glaucous green of early leaves,     Spring's radiant raiment?     Up, up, my Heart, and forth, where none perceives!     Come, let us forth, my Heart, where none divines!     Into far woodland places,     Where we may meet the fair, assembled races,     Beneath the guardian pines,     Of God's first flowers: poppy-celandines,     And wake-robins and bugled columbines,     With which her hair, her heavenly hair she twines,     And loops and laces.     Come let us forth, my Heart, where none divines!     Forth, forth, my Heart, and let us find our dreams,     There where they haunt each hollow!     Dreams, luring us with Oread feet to follow,     With flying feet of beams,     Fleeter and lighter than the soaring swallow:     Dreams, holding us with Dryad glooms and gleams;     With Naiad looks, far stiller than still streams,     That have beheld and still reflect, it seems,     The God Apollo.     Forth, forth, my Heart, and let us find our dreams!     Out, out my Heart! the world is white with spring.     Long have our dreams been pleaders:     Now let them be our firm but gentle leaders.     Come, let us forth and sing     Among the amber-emerald-tufted cedars,     And balm-o'-Gileads, cottonwoods, a-swing     Like giant censers, that from leaf-cusps fling     Balsams of gummy gold, bewildering     The winds their feeders.     Out, out, my Heart! the world is white with spring.     Up, up, my Heart, and all thy hope put on!     Array thyself in splendor!     Like some bright dragonfly, some May-fly slender,     The irised lamels don     Of thy new armor; and, where burns the centre,     Refulgent, of the widening rose of dawn,     Spread thy wild wings! and, ere the hour be gone,     Bright as a blast from some bold clarion,     Thy Dream-world enter!     Up, up, my heart, and all thy hope put on! IV.     And then I heard it singing,     The wind that kissed my hair,     A song of wild expression,     A song that called in session     The wildflowers there up-springing,     The wildflowers lightly flinging     Their tresses to the air.     And first the bloodroot-blooms of March     In troops arose; each with its torch     Of hollow snow, within which, bright,     The calyx grottoed golden light.     Hepatica and bluet,     And gold corydalis.     Rose, swaying to the aria;     While phlox and dim dentaria     In rapture, ere they knew it,     Oped, nodding lightly to it,     Faint as a first star is.     And then a music, to the ear     Inaudible, I seemed to hear;     A symphony that seemed to rise     And speak in colors to the eyes.     I saw the Jacob's-Ladder     Ring violet peal on peal     Of perfume, azure-swinging;     The bluebell slimly ringing     Its purple chimes; and gladder,     Green note on note, the madder     Bells of the Solomon's-seal.     Now far away; now near; now lost,     I saw their fragrant music tossed,     Mixed dimly with white interludes     Of trilliums starring cool the woods.     Then choral, solitary,     I saw the celandine     Smite bright its golden cymbals;     The starwort shake its timbrels;     The whiteheart's horns of Faery,     With many a flourish airy,     Strike silvery into line.     And straight my soul they seemed to draw,     By chords of loveliness and awe,     Into a Faery World afar,     Where all man's dreams and longings are. V.     Then the face of a spirit looked down at me     Out of the deeps of the opal morn:     Its eyes were blue as a sunlit sea,     And young with the joy of a star that has just been born:     And I seemed to hear, with my soul, the rose of its cool mouth say:     "Long I lay; long I lay,     Low on the Hills of the Break-of-Day,     Where ever the light is green and gray,     And the gleam of the moon is a silvery spray,     And the stars are glimmering bubbles:     Now from the Hills of the Break-of-Day.     I come, I come, on a rainbow ray,     To laugh and sparkle, to leap and play,     And blow from the face of the world away,     Like mists, its cares and troubles." VI.     And now that the dawn is everywhere     Let us take this road through this wild green place,     Where the rattlesnake-weed shows its yellow face,     And the lichens cover the rocks with lace:     Where tannin-touched is the wild free air,     Let us take this path through the oaks where thin     The low leaves whisper, "The day is fair, "     And waters murmur, "Come in, come in!     Where the wind of our foam can play with your hair     And blow away care."     Berry blossoms that seem to flow     As the winds blow;     Blackberry blossoms swing and sway     To and fro     Along our way,     Like ocean spray on a breezy day,     Over the green of the grass as foam on the green of a bay     When the world is white and green with the white and the green of May.     And here the bluets blooming     Make little eyes at you;     O'er which the bees go booming,     Drunk with the honey-dew.     O slender Quaker-ladies,     O star-bright Quaker-ladies,     With eyes of heavenly blue,     With eyes of azure hue,     Who, where the mossy shade is,     Hold quiet Quaker-meeting,     Are these your serenaders?     Your gold-hipped serenaders,     Who, humming love-songs true,     And to your eyes repeating     Soft ballads, stop to woo?     Then change to ambuscaders,     To gold galloond raiders,     And rob the hearts of you,     The golden hearts of you.     And here the bells of the huckleberries toss, so it seems, in time,     Delicate, tenderly white, clumped by the wildwood way,     Swinging, it seems, inaudible peals of a dew clustered rhyme,     Visible music, dropped from the virginal lips of the May,     Crystally dropped, so it seems, blossoming bar upon bar,     Pendent, pensively pale, star upon hollowed star. VII.     The dewberries are blooming now;     The days are long, the nights are short:     Each dogwood and each black-haw bough     Is bleached with bloom, and seems a part,     Reflected palely on her brow,     Of dreams that haunt the Year's young heart.     But this will pass; and instantly     The world forget the spring that was;     And underneath the wild-plum tree,     'Mid hornet hum and wild-bee's buzz,     Summer, in dreamy reverie,     Will sit, all warm and amorous.     Summer, with drowsy eyes and hair,     Who walks the orchard aisles between;     Whose hot touch tans the freckled pear,     And crimsons peach and nectarine;     And in the vineyard everywhere     Bubbles with blue the grape's ripe green.     Where now the briers blossoming are     Soon will the berries darkly glow;     Then summer pass: and, star on star,     Where now the grass is strewn below     With blossoms, soon, both near and far,     Will lie th' obliterating snow.     The star-flower, now that discs with gold     The woodland moss, the forest grass,     Already in a day is old,     Already doth its beauty pass;     Soon, undistinguished, with the mould     'T will mingle and will mix, alas!     The bluet, too, that spreads its skies,     Diminutive heavens, at our feet;     And crowfoot-bloom, that, with orbed eyes     Of amber, now our eyes doth greet,     Shall fade and pass, and none surmise     How once they made the Maytime sweet. VIII.     But still the crowfoot trails its gold     Along the edges of the oak wood old;     And still, where spreads the water, white are seen     The lilies islanded between     The pads 'round archipelagoes of green;     The jade-dark pads that pave     The water's wrinkled wave,     In which the warbler and the sparrow lave     Their fluttered breasts and wings;     Preening their backs, with many twitterings,     With necks the moisture streaks;     Then dipping deep their beaks,     To which some bead of liquid coolness clings,     As bending back their mellow throats     They let the freshness trickle into notes.     And now you hear     The red-capped woodpecker rap close and clear;     And now that acrobat,     The yellow-breasted chat,     Chuckles his grotesque music from     Some tree that he hath clomb.     And now, and now,     Upon a locust bough,     Hark how the honey-throated thrush     Scatters the forest's emerald hush     With notes of golden harmony,     Taking the woods with witchery     Or is 't some spirit none may see,     Hid in the top of yonder tree,     Who, in his house of leaves, of haunted green,     Keeps trying, silver-sweet, his sunbeam flute serene? IX.     Again the spirit looked down at me     Out of the sunset's ruin of gold;     Its eyes were dark as a moonless sea,     And grave with the grief of a star that with sorrow is old:     And I seemed to hear, with my soul, the flame of its sad mouth sigh:     "Now good-by! now good-by!     Down to the Caves of the Night go I:     Where a shadowy couch of the purple sky,     That the moon- and the starlight curtain high,     Is spread for my joy and sorrow:     Down to the Caves of the Night go I,     Where side by side in mystery     With all the Yesterdays I'll lie;     And where, from my body, before I die,     Will be born the young To-morrow." X.     And now that the dusk draws down you see,     Tipped by the weight of a passing bee,     The milkwort's spike of blue,     Of lavender hue,     Nod like a goblin night-cap, slim, sedate,     That night shall tassel with the dew,     Beneath its canopy of flowering rue.     And now, as twilight's purple state     Deepens the oaks' dark vistas through,     The owlet's cry of"Who, oh, who,     Who walks so late?"     Drifts like a challenge down to you.     Or there on the twig of the oak-tree tall,     The gray-green egg in the gray-green gall,     You, too, might hear if you, too, would try,     Might hear it open; all tinily     Split, and the little round worm and white,     That grows to a gnat in a summer night,     Uncurl in its nest as it dreams of flight:     In the heart of the weed that grows near by,     The little gray worm that becomes a fly,     A green wood-fly, a rainbowed fly,     You, too, might hear if you, too, would try,     As a leaf-bud pushes from forth a tree,     Minute of movement, steadily,     As it feels a yearning for wings begin,     Under the milk of its larval skin     The silent pressure of wings within.     The west grows ashen, the woods grow berylwan;     The redbird lifts its plaintive vesper-song,     Where faint a fox or rabbit steals along:     And in some vine-roofed hollow, far withdrawn,     The creek-frog sounds his deeply guttural gong,     As dusk comes on:     The water's gnarld dwarf or gnome,     Seated upon his temple's oozy dome,     Calling the faithful unto prayer,     Muezzin-like, the worshippers of the moon,     The insect-folk of earth and air     That join him in his twilight tune.     Along the path where the lizard hides,     An instant shadow the spider glides,     The hairy spider that haunts the way,     Crouching black by its earth-bored hole,     An insect-ogre, that lairs with the mole,     Hungry, seeking its insect prey,     Fast to follow and swift to slay.     And over your hands and over your face     The cobweb brushes its phantom lace:     And now from many a stealthy place,     Woolly-winged and gossamer-gray,     The woodland moths come fluttering,     Marked and mottled with lichen hues,     Seal-soft umbers and downy blues,     Dark as the bark to which they cling.     Now in the hollow of a hill,     Like a glow-worm held in a giant hand,     Under the sunset's last red band,     And one star hued like a daffodil,     The windowed lamp of a cabin glows,     The charcoal-burner's, whose hut is poor,     But ever open; beside whose door     An oak grows gnarled and a pine stands slim.     Clean of heart and of feature grim,     Here he houses where no one knows,     His only neighbors the cawing crows     That make a roost of the pine's top limb;     His only friend the fiddle he bows     As he sits at his door in the eve's repose,     Making it chuckle and sing and speak,     Lovingly pressed to his swarthy cheek.     And over many a root, through ferns and weeds,     Past lonely places where the raccoon breeds,     By many a rock and water lying dim,     Roofed with the brier and the bramble-rose,     Under a star and the new-moon's rim,     Downward the wood-way leads to him,     Down where the lone lamp gleams and glows,     A pencil slim     Of marigold light'under leaf and limb. XI.     Ere that small sisterhood of misty-stars,     The Pleiades, consents to grace the sky;     While yet through sunset's tiger-tawny bars     The evening-star shines downward like an eye,     A torch, Enchantment, in her topaz tower     Of twilight, kindles at the Day's last hour,     Listen, and you may hear, now low, now high,     A voice, a spirit, dreamier than a flower.     There is a fellowship so still and sweet,     A brotherhood, that speaks, unwordable,     In every tree, in every flower you meet,     The soul is fain to sit beneath its spell.     And heart-admitted to their presence there,     Those intimacies of the earth and air,     It shall hear words, too wonderful to tell,     Too deep to interpret, of unspoken prayer.     And you may see the things no eyes have seen,     And hear the things no ears have ever heard;     The Murmur of the Woods, in gray and green,     Will lean to you, its soul a whispered word;     Or by your side, in hushed and solemn wise,     The Silence sit; and, clothed in glimmering dyes     Of pearl and purple, herding bee and bird,     The Dusk steal by you with her shadowy eyes.     Then through the Ugliness that toils in night,     Uncouth, obscure, that hates the glare of day,     The things that pierce the earth and know no light,     And hide themselves in clamminess and clay,     The dumb, ungainly things, that make a home     Of mud and mire they hill and honeycomb,     Through these, perhaps, in some mysterious way,     Beauty may speak fairer than wind-blown foam.     Not as it speaks, an eagle message, drawn     From starry vastness of night's labyrinths:     Not uttering itself from out the dawn     In egret hues; nor from the cloud-built plinths     Of sunset's splendor, speaking burningly     Unto the spirit; nor all flowery     From cygnet-colored cymes of hyacinths,     But from the things that type humility.     From things despised: even from the crawfish there,     Hollowing its house of ooze a wet, vague sound     Of sleepy slime; or from the mole, whose lair,     Blind-tunnelled, corridores the earth around,     Beauty may draw her truths, as draws its wings     The butterfly from the dull worm that clings,     Cocoon and chrysalis; and from the ground     Address the soul through even senseless things.     For oft my soul hath heard the trees' huge roots     Fumble the darkness, clutching at the soil;     Hath heard the green beaks of th' imprisoned shoots     Peck at the boughs from which the leaves uncoil;     Hath heard the buried germ soft split its pod,     Groping its blind way up to light and God;     The mushroom, laboring with gnome-like toil,     Heave slow its white orb through the encircling sod.     The winds and waters, stars and streams and flowers,     The earth and rocks, each moss-tuft and each fern,     The very lichens speak. This world of ours     Is eloquent with things that bid us learn     To pierce appearances, and so to mark,     Within the stone and underneath the bark,     Heard through some inward sense, the dreams that turn     Outward to light and beauty from the dark. XII.     I stood alone in a mountain place,     And it came to pass, as I gazed on space,     That I met with Mystery, face to face.     Within her eyes my wondering soul beheld     The eons past, the eons yet to come,     At cosmic labor; and the stars, that swelled,     Fiery or nebulous, from the darkness dumb,     In each appointed place and period,     I saw were words, whose hieroglyphic sum     Blazoned one word, the mystic name of God.     I walked alone 'mid the forest's maze,     And it came to pass, as I went my ways,     That I met with Beauty, face to face.     Within her eyes my worshipping spirit saw     The moments busy with the dreams whence spring     Earth's loveliness: and all fair things that awe     Man's soul with their perfection everything     That buds and bourgeons, blossoming above,     I saw were letters of enduring Law     That bloomed one word, the beautiful name of Love.