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I. THE VOICE IN THE PINES
THE MORN is softly beautiful and still, | |
| Its light fair clouds in pencilled gold and gray | |
| Pause motionless above the pine-grown hill, | |
| Where the pines, tranced as by a wizard’s will, | |
| Uprise, as mute and motionless as they! | 5 |
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| Yea! mute and moveless; not one flickering spray | |
| Flashed into sunlight, nor a gaunt bough stirred; | |
| Yet, if wooed hence beneath those pines to stray, | |
| We catch a faint, thin murmur far away, | |
| A bodiless voice, by grosser ears unheard. | 10 |
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| What voice is this? what low and solemn tone, | |
| Which, though all wings of all the winds seem furled, | |
| Nor even the zephyr’s fairy flute is blown, | |
| Makes thus forever its mysterious moan | |
| From out the whispering pine-tops’ shadowy world? | 15 |
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| Ah! can it be the antique tales are true? | |
| Doth some lone Dryad haunt the breezeless air, | |
| Fronting yon bright illimitable blue, | |
| And wildly breathing all her wild soul through | |
| That strange, unearthly music of despair? | 20 |
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| Or can it be that ages since, storm-tossed, | |
| And driven far inland from the roaring lea, | |
| Some baffled ocean-spirit, worn and lost, | |
| Here, through dry summer’s dearth and winter’s frost, | |
| Yearns for the sharp, sweet kisses of the sea? | 25 |
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| Whate’er the spell, I hearken and am dumb, | |
| Dream-touched, and musing in the tranquil morn; | |
| All woodland sounds,—the pheasant’s gusty drum, | |
| The mock-bird’s fugue, the droning insect’s hum,— | |
| Scarce heard for that strange, sorrowful voice forlorn! | 30 |
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| Beneath the drowséd sense, from deep to deep | |
| Of spiritual life its mournful minor flows, | |
| Stream-like, with pensive tide, whose currents keep | |
| Low-murmuring ’twixt the bounds of grief and sleep, | |
| Yet looked for aye from sleep’s divine repose. | 35 |
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II. ASPECTS OF THE PINES
TALL, sombre, grim, against the morning sky | |
| They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs | |
| Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully, | |
| As if from realms of mystical despairs. | |
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| Tall, sombre, grim, they stand with dusky gleams | 40 |
| Brightening to gold within the woodland’s core, | |
| Beneath the gracious noontide’s tranquil beams, | |
| But the weird winds of morning sigh no more. | |
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| A stillness, strange, divine, ineffable, | |
| Broods round and o’er them in the wind’s surcease, | 45 |
| And on each tinted copse and shimmering dell | |
| Rests the mute rapture of deep-hearted peace. | |
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| Last, sunset comes,—the solemn joy and might | |
| Borne from the west when cloudless day declines,— | |
| Low, flute-like breezes sweep the waves of light, | 50 |
| And lifting dark green tresses of the pines, | |
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| Till every lock is luminous,—gently float, | |
| Fraught with hale odors up the heavens afar | |
| To faint when Twilight on her virginal throat | |
| Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star. | 55 |
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III. FOREST PICTURES—MORNING
O GRACIOUS breath of sunrise! divine air! | |
| That brood’st serenely o’er the purpling hills; | |
| O blissful valleys! nestling, cool and fair, | |
| In the fond arms of yonder murmurous rills, | |
| Breathing their grateful measures to the sun; | 60 |
| O dew-besprinkled paths, that circling run | |
| Through sylvan shades and solemn silences, | |
| Once more ye bring my fevered spirit peace! | |
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| The fitful breezes, fraught with forest balm, | |
| Faint, in rare wafts of perfume, on my brow; | 65 |
| The woven lights and shadows, rife with calm, | |
| Creep slantwise ’twixt the foliage, bough on bough | |
| Uplifted heavenward, like a verdant cloud | |
| Whose rain is music, soft as love, or loud | |
| With jubilant hope,—for there, entranced, apart, | 70 |
| The mock-bird sings, close, close to Nature’s heart. | |
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| Shy forms about the greenery, out and in, | |
| Flit ’neath the broadening glories of the morn; | |
| The squirrel—that quaint sylvan harlequin— | |
| Mounts the tall trunks; while swift as lightning, born | 75 |
| Of summer mists, from tangled vine and tree | |
| Dart the dove’s pinions, pulsing vividly | |
| Down the dense glades, till glimmering far and gray | |
| The dusky vision softly melts away! | |
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| In transient, pleased bewilderment, I mark | 80 |
| The last dim shimmer of those lessening wings, | |
| When from lone copse and shadowy covert, hark! | |
| What mellow tongue through all the woodland rings! | |
| The deer-hound’s voice, sweet as the golden bell’s, | |
| Prolonged by flying echoes round the dells, | 85 |
| And up the loftiest summits wildly borne, | |
| Blent with the blast of some keen huntsman’s horn. | |
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| And now the checkered vale is left behind; | |
| I climb the slope, and reach the hill-top bright; | |
| Here, in bold freedom, swells a sovereign wind, | 90 |
| Whose gusty prowess sweeps the pine-clad height; | |
| While the pines,—dreamy Titans roused from sleep,— | |
| Answer with mighty voices, deep on deep | |
| Of wakened foliage surging like a sea; | |
| And o’er them smiles Heaven’s calm infinity! | 95 |
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