Intimations Of The Beautiful

I     The hills are full of prophecies     And ancient voices of the dead;     Of hidden shapes that no man sees,     Pale, visionary presences,     That speak the things no tongue hath said,     No mind hath thought, no eye hath read.     The streams are full of oracles,     And momentary whisperings;     An immaterial beauty swells     Its breezy silver o'er the shells     With wordless speech that sings and sings     The message of diviner things.     No indeterminable thought is theirs,     The stars', the sunsets' and the flowers';     Whose inexpressible speech declares     Th' immortal Beautiful, who shares     This mortal riddle which is ours,     Beyond the forward-flying hours. II     It holds and beckons in the streams;     It lures and touches us in all     The flowers of the golden fall -     The mystic essence of our dreams:     A nymph blows bubbling music where     Faint water ripples down the rocks;     A faun goes dancing hoiden locks,     And piping a Pandean air,     Through trees the instant wind shakes bare.     Our dreams are never otherwise     Than real when they hold us so;     We in some future life shall know     Them parts of it and recognize     Them as ideal substance, whence     The actual is - (as flowers and trees,     From color sources no one sees,     Draw dyes, the substance of a sense) -     Material with intelligence. III     What intimations made them wise,     The mournful pine, the pleasant beech?     What strange and esoteric speech? -     (Communicated from the skies     In runic whispers) - that invokes     The boles that sleep within the seeds,     And out of narrow darkness leads     The vast assemblies of the oaks.     Within his knowledge, what one reads     The poems written by the flowers?     The sermons, past all speech of ours,     Preached by the gospel of the weeds? -     O eloquence of coloring!     O thoughts of syllabled perfume!     O beauty uttered into bloom!     Teach me your language! let me sing! IV     Along my mind flies suddenly     A wildwood thought that will not die;     That makes me brother to the bee,     And cousin to the butterfly:     A thought, such as gives perfume to     The blushes of the bramble-rose,     And, fixed in quivering crystal, glows     A captive in the prismed dew.     It leads the feet no certain way;     No frequent path of human feet:     Its wild eyes follow me all day;     All day I hear its wild heart beat:     And in the night it sings and sighs     The songs the winds and waters love;     Its wild heart lying tranced above,     And tranced the wildness of its eyes. V     Oh, joy, to walk the way that goes     Through woods of sweet-gum and of beech!     Where, like a ruby left in reach,     The berry of the dogwood glows:     Or where the bristling hillsides mass,     'Twixt belts of tawny sassafras,     Brown shocks of corn in wigwam rows!     Where, in the hazy morning, runs     The stony branch that pools and drips,     The red-haws and the wild-rose hips     Are strewn like pebbles; and the sun's     Own gold seems captured by the weeds;     To see, through scintillating seeds,     The hunters steal with glimmering guns!     Oh, joy, to go the path which lies     Through woodlands where the trees are tall!     Beneath the misty moon of fall,     Whose ghostly girdle prophesies     A morn wind-swept and gray with rain;     When, o'er the lonely, leaf-blown lane,     The night-hawk like a dead leaf flies!     To stand within the dewy ring     Where pale death smites the boneset blooms,     And everlasting's flowers, and plumes     Of mint, with aromatic wing!     And hear the creek, - whose sobbing seems     A wild-man murmuring in his dreams, -     And insect violins that sing.     Or where the dim persimmon tree     Rains on the path its frosty fruit,     And in the oak the owl doth hoot,     Beneath the moon and mist, to see     The outcast Year go, - Hagar-wise, -     With far-off, melancholy eyes,     And lips that sigh for sympathy. VI     Towards evening, where the sweet-gum flung     Its thorny balls among the weeds,     And where the milkweed's sleepy seeds, -     A faery Feast of Lanterns, - swung;     The cricket tuned a plaintive lyre,     And o'er the hills the sunset hung     A purple parchment scrawled with fire.     From silver-blue to amethyst     The shadows deepened in the vale;     And belt by belt the pearly-pale     Aladdin fabric of the mist     Built up its exhalation far;     A jewel on an Afrit's wrist,     One star gemmed sunset's cinnabar.     Then night drew near, as when, alone,     The heart and soul grow intimate;     And on the hills the twilight sate     With shadows, whose wild robes were sown     With dreams and whispers; - dreams, that led     The heart once with love's monotone,     And memories of the living-dead. VII     All night the rain-gusts shook the leaves     Around my window; and the blast     Rumbled the flickering flue, and fast     The storm streamed from the dripping eaves.     As if - 'neath skies gone mad with fear -     The witches' Sabboth galloped past,     The forests leapt like startled deer.     All night I heard the sweeping sleet;     And when the morning came, as slow     As wan affliction, with the woe     Of all the world dragged at her feet,     No spear of purple shattered through     The dark gray of the east; no bow     Of gold shot arrows swift and blue.     But rain, that whipped the windows; filled     The spouts with rushings; and around     The garden stamped, and sowed the ground     With limbs and leaves; the wood-pool filled     With overgurgling. - Bleak and cold     The fields looked, where the footpath wound     Through teasel and bur-marigold.     Yet there's a kindness in such days     Of gloom, that doth console regret     With sympathy of tears, which wet     Old eyes that watch the back-log blaze. -     A kindness, alien to the deep     Glad blue of sunny days that let     No thought in of the lives that weep. VIII     This dawn, through which the Autumn glowers, -     As might a face within our sleep,     With stone-gray eyes that weep and weep,     And wet brows bound with sodden flowers, -     Is sunset to some sister land;     A land of ruins and of palms;     Rich sunset, crimson with long calms, -     Whose burning belt low mountains bar, -     That sees some brown Rebecca stand     Beside a well the camel-band     Winds down to 'neath the evening star.     O sunset, sister to this dawn!     O dawn, whose face is turned away!     Who gazest not upon this day,     But back upon the day that's gone!     Enamored so of loveliness,     The retrospect of what thou wast,     Oh, to thyself the present trust!     And as thy past be beautiful     With hues, that never can grow less!     Waiting thy pleasure to express     New beauty lest the world grow dull. IX     Down in the woods a sorcerer,     Out of rank rain and death, distills, -     Through chill alembics of the air, -     Aromas that brood everywhere     Among the whisper-haunted hills:     The bitter myrrh of dead leaves fills     Wet valleys (where the gaunt weeds bleach)     With rainy scents of wood-decay; -     As if a spirit all the day     Sat breathing softly 'neath the beech.     With other eyes I see her flit,     The wood-witch of the wild perfumes,     Among her elfin owls, - that sit,     A drowsy white, in crescent-lit     Dim glens of opalescent glooms: -     Where, for her magic, buds and blooms     Mysterious perfumes, while she stands,     A thornlike shadow, summoning     The sleepy odors, that take wing     Like bubbles from her dewy hands. X     Among the woods they call to me -     The lights that haunt the wood and stream;     Voices of such white ecstasy     As moves with hushed lips through a dream:     They stand in auraed radiances,     Or flash with nimbused limbs across     Their golden shadows on the moss,     Or slip in silver through the trees.     What love can give the heart in me     More hope and exaltation than     The hand of light that tips the tree     And beckons far from marts of man?     That reaches foamy fingers through     The broken ripple, and replies     With sparkling speech of lips and eyes     To souls who seek and still pursue. XI     Give me the streams, that counterfeit     The twilight of autumnal skies;     The shadowy, silent waters, lit     With fire like a woman's eyes!     Slow waters that, in autumn, glass     The scarlet-strewn and golden grass,     And drink the sunset's tawny dyes.     Give me the pools, that lie among     The centuried forests! give me those,     Deep, dim, and sad as darkness hung     Beneath the sunset's somber rose:     Still pools, in whose vague mirrors look -     Like ragged gypsies round a book     Of magic - trees in wild repose.     No quiet thing, or innocent,     Of water, earth, or air shall please     My soul now: but the violent     Between the sunset and the trees:     The fierce, the splendid, and intense,     That love matures in innocence,     Like mighty music, give me these! XII     When thorn-tree copses still were bare     And black along the turbid brook;     When catkined willows blurred and shook     Great tawny tangles in the air;     In bottomlands, the first thaw makes     An oozy bog, beneath the trees,     Prophetic of the spring that wakes,     Sang the sonorous hylodes.     Now that wild winds have stripped the thorn,     And clogged with leaves the forest-creek;     Now that the woods look blown and bleak,     And webs are frosty white at morn;     At night beneath the spectral sky,     A far foreboding cry I hear -     The wild fowl calling as they fly?     Or wild voice of the dying Year? XIII     And still my soul holds phantom tryst,     When chestnuts hiss among the coals,     Upon the Evening of All Souls,     When all the night is moon and mist,     And all the world is mystery;     I kiss dear lips that death hath kissed,     And gaze in eyes no man may see,     Filled with a love long lost to me.     I hear the night-wind's ghostly glove     Flutter the window: then the knob     Of some dark door turn, with a sob     As when love comes to gaze on love     Who lies pale-coffined in a room:     And then the iron gallop of     The storm, who rides outside; his plume     Sweeping the night with dread and gloom.     So fancy takes the mind, and paints     The darkness with eidolon light,     And writes the dead's romance in night     On the dim Evening of All Saints:     Unheard the hissing nuts; the clink     And fall of coals, whose shadow faints     Around the hearts that sit and think,     Borne far beyond the actual's brink. XIV     I heard the wind, before the morn     Stretched gaunt, gray fingers 'thwart my pane,     Drive clouds down, a dark dragon-train;     Its iron visor closed, a horn     Of steel from out the north it wound. -     No morn like yesterday's! whose mouth,     A cool carnation, from the south     Breathed through a golden reed the sound     Of days that drop clear gold upon     Cerulean silver floors of dawn.     And all of yesterday is lost     And swallowed in to-day's wild light -     The birth deformed of day and night,     The illegitimate, who cost     Its mother secret tears and sighs;     Unlovely since unloved; and chilled     With sorrows and the shame that filled     Its parents' love; which was not wise     In passion as the day and night     That married yestermorn with light. XV     Down through the dark, indignant trees,     On indistinguishable wings     Of storm, the wind of evening swings;     Before its insane anger flees     Distracted leaf and shattered bough:     There is a rushing as when seas     Of thunder beat an iron prow     On reefs of wrath and roaring wreck:     'Mid stormy leaves, a hurrying speck     Of flickering blackness, driven by,     A mad bat whirls along the sky.     Like some sad shadow, in the eve's     Deep melancholy - visible     As by some strange and twilight spell -     A gaunt girl stands among the leaves,     The night-wind in her dolorous dress:     Symbolic of the life that grieves,     Of toil that patience makes not less,     Her load of fagots fallen there. -     A wilder shadow sweeps the air,     And she is gone.... Was it the dumb     Eidolon of the month to come? XVI     The song birds - are they flown away?     The song birds of the summer time,     That sang their souls into the day,     And set the laughing hours to rhyme.     No catbird scatters through the bush     The sparkling crystals of its song;     Within the woods no hermit-thrush     Thridding with vocal gold the hush.     All day the crows fly cawing past:     The acorns drop: the forests scowl:     At night I hear the bitter blast     Hoot with the hooting of the owl.     The wild creeks freeze: the ways are strewn     With leaves that clog: beneath the tree     The bird, that set its toil to tune,     And made a home for melody,     Lies dead beneath the snow-white moon.