The Old Farm

Dormered and verandaed, cool,     Locust-girdled, on the hill;     Stained with weather-wear, and dull-     Streak'd with lichens; every sill     Thresholding the beautiful;     I can see it standing there,     Brown above the woodland deep,     Wrapped in lights of lavender,     By the warm wind rocked asleep,     Violet shadows everywhere.     I remember how the Spring,     Liberal-lapped, bewildered its     Acred orchards, murmuring,     Kissed to blossom; budded bits     Where the wood-thrush came to sing.     Barefoot Spring, at first who trod,     Like a beggermaid, adown     The wet woodland; where the god,     With the bright sun for a crown     And the firmament for rod,     Met her; clothed her; wedded her;     Her Cophetua: when, lo!     All the hill, one breathing blur,     Burst in beauty; gleam and glow     Blent with pearl and lavender.     Seckel, blackheart, palpitant     Rained their bleaching strays; and white     Snowed the damson, bent aslant;     Rambow-tree and romanite     Seemed beneath deep drifts to pant.     And it stood there, brown and gray,     In the bee-boom and the bloom,     In the shadow and the ray,     In the passion and perfume,     Grave as age among the gay.     Wild with laughter romped the clear     Boyish voices round its walls;     Rare wild-roses were the dear     Girlish faces in its halls,     Music-haunted all the year.     Far before it meadows full     Of green pennyroyal sank;     Clover-dotted as with wool     Here and there; with now a bank     Hot of color; and the cool     Dark-blue shadows unconfined     Of the clouds rolled overhead:     Clouds, from which the summer wind     Blew with rain, and freshly shed     Dew upon the flowerkind.     Where through mint and gypsy-lily     Runs the rocky brook away,     Musical among the hilly     Solitudes, - its flashing spray     Sunlight-dashed or forest-stilly, -     Buried in deep sassafras,     Memory follows up the hill     Still some cowbell's mellow brass,     Where the ruined water-mill     Looms, half-hid in cane and grass....     Oh, the farmhouse! is it set     On the hilltop still? 'mid musk     Of the meads? where, violet,     Deepens all the dreaming dusk,     And the locust-trees hang wet.     While the sunset, far and low,     On its westward windows dashes     Primrose or pomegranate glow;     And above, in glimmering splashes,     Lilac stars the heavens sow.     Sleeps it still among its roses, -     Oldtime roses? while the choir     Of the lonesome insects dozes:     And the white moon, drifting higher,     O'er its mossy roof reposes -     Sleeps it still among its roses?