PRELUDE

ALONG the roadside, like the flowers of

gold

That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod, And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers Hang motionless upon their upright staves. The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind, Wing-weary with its long flight from the south,

Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf

With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams,
Confesses it. The locust by the wall
Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm.
A single hay-cart down the dusty road
Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep
On the load's top. Against the neighbor-
ing hill,

Huddled along the stone wall's shady side, The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still

Defied the dog-star. Through the open door

A drowsy smell of flowers

gray helio

trope, And white sweet clover, and shy mignon

And heart are starved amidst the plenitude
Of nature, and how hard and colorless
Is life without an atmosphere. I look
Across the lapse of half a century,
And call to mind old homesteads, where no
flower

Told that the spring had come, but evil weeds,

Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the place

Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose And honeysuckle, where the house walls seemed

Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine
To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves
Across the curtainless windows, from whose
panes

Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness. Within, the cluttered kitchen floor, unwashed

(Broom-clean I think they called it); the best room

Stifling with cellar-damp, shut from the air
In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless
Save the inevitable sampler hung
Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece,
A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, be-
neath

Impossible willows; the wide-throated

Treading the May-flowers with regardless

feet;

For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves;

For them in vain October's holocaust Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills, The sacramental mystery of the woods. Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers, But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pewrent,

Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls And winter pork with the least possible outlay

Of salt and sanctity; in daily life
Showing as little actual comprehension
Of Christian charity and love and duty,
As if the Sermon on the Mount had been
Outdated like a last year's almanac :
Rich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled
fields,

And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless,

The veriest straggler limping on his rounds, The sun and air his sole inheritance, Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes, And hugged his rags in self-complacency!

Not such should be the homesteads of a land

Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell

As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state, With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make

His hour of leisure richer than a life
Of fourscore to the barons of old time,
Our yeoman should be equal to his home
Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled,
A man to match his mountains, not to creep
Dwarfed and abased below them. I would
fain

In this light way (of which I needs must

own

With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings,'

"Story, God bless you! I have none to tell you!")

Invite the eye to see and heart to feel
The beauty and the joy within their reach,-
Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes
Of nature free to all. Haply in years
That wait to take the places of our own,
Heard where some breezy balcony looks
down

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On happy homes, or where the lake in the

moon

Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as

Ruth,

In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet
Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine
May seem the burden of a prophecy,
Finding its late fulfilment in a change
Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up
Through broader culture, finer manners,
love,

And reverence, to the level of the hills.

O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn,
And not of sunset, forward, not behind,
Flood the new heavens and earth, and with
thee bring

All the old virtues, whatsoever things
Are pure and honest and of good repute,
But add thereto whatever bard has sung
Or seer has told of when in trance and dream
They saw the Happy Isles of prophecy !
Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide
Between the right and wrong; but give the
heart

The freedom of its fair inheritance;
Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved
so long,

At Nature's table feast his ear and eye
With joy and wonder; let all harmonies
Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon
The princely guest, whether in soft attire
Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of
toil,

And, lending life to the dead form of faith,
Give human nature reverence for the sake
Of One who bore it, making it divine
With the ineffable tenderness of God;
Let common need, the brotherhood of

prayer,

The heirship of an unknown destiny,
The unsolved mystery round about us, make
A man more precious than the gold of Ophir.
Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things
Should minister, as outward types and signs
Of the eternal beauty which fulfils
The one great purpose of creation, Love,
The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven!

For weeks the clouds had raked the hills
And vexed the vales with raining,
And all the woods were sad with mist,
And all the brooks complaining.

We held our sideling way above

The river's whitening shallows, By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns Swept through and through by swallows;

By maple orchards, belts of pine

And larches climbing darkly
The mountain slopes, and, over all,
The great peaks rising starkly.

You should have seen that long hill-range
With gaps of brightness riven,
How through each pass and hollow streamed
The purpling lights of heaven,-

Rivers of gold-mist flowing down
From far celestial fountains,

The great sun flaming through the rifts
Beyond the wall of mountains!

We paused at last where home-bound cows Brought down the pasture's treasure, And in the barn the rhythmic flails

Beat out a harvest measure.

We heard the night-hawk's sullen plunge,
The crow his tree-mates calling:
The shadows lengthening down the slopes
About our feet were falling.

And through them smote the level sun
In broken lines of splendor,

Touched the gray rocks and made the green

Of the shorn grass more tender.

The maples bending o'er the gate,
Their arch of leaves just tinted
With yellow warmth, the golden glow
Of coming autumn hinted.

Keen white between the farm-house showed,
And smiled on porch and trellis,
The fair democracy of flowers
That equals cot and palace.

And weaving garlands for her dog,
'Twixt chidings and caresses,

A human flower of childhood shook
The sunshine from her tresses.

On either hand we saw the signs

Of fancy and of shrewdness, Where taste had wound its arms of vines Round thrift's uncomely rudeness.

The sun-brown farmer in his frock
Shook hands, and called to Mary:
Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came,
White-aproned from her dairy.

Her air, her smile, her motions, told
Of womanly completeness;
A music as of household songs

Was in her voice of sweetness.

Before her queenly womanhood
How dared our hostess utter
The paltry errand of her need

To buy her fresh-churned butter?

She led the way with housewife pride,
Her goodly store disclosing,
Full tenderly the golden balls
With practised hands disposing.

Then, while along the western hills
We watched the changeful glory
Of sunset, on our homeward way,
I heard her simple story.

The early crickets sang; the stream Plashed through my friend's narration : Her rustic patois of the hills

Lost in my free translation.

"More wise," she said, "than those who

swarm

Our hills in middle summer,

She came, when June's first roses blow,
To greet the early comer.

"From school and ball and rout she came,
The city's fair, pale daughter,
To drink the wine of mountain air
Beside the Bearcamp Water.

"Her step grew firmer on the hills
That watch our homesteads over ;
On cheek and lip, from summer fields,
She caught the bloom of clover.

"For health comes sparkling in the streams
From cool Chocorua stealing:
There's iron in our Northern winds;
Our pines are trees of healing.

"She sat beneath the broad-armed elms
That skirt the mowing meadow,
And watched the gentle west-wind weave
The grass with shine and shadow.

"Beside her, from the summer heat

To share her grateful screening, With forehead bared, the farmer stood, Upon his pitchfork leaning.

"Framed in its damp, dark locks, his face

Had nothing mean or common, Strong, manly, true, the tenderness And pride beloved of woman.

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"She looked up, glowing with the health
The country air had brought her,
And, laughing, said: 'You lack a wife,
Your mother lacks a daughter.

"To mend your frock and bake your bread

You do not need a lady :

Be sure among these brown old homes
Is some one waiting ready, —

"Some fair, sweet girl with skilful hand
And cheerful heart for treasure,
Who never played with ivory keys,
Or danced the polka's measure.'

"He bent his black brows to a frown,
He set his white teeth tightly.
"'T is well,' he said, 'for one like you
To choose for me so lightly.

"You think because my life is rude I take no note of sweetness : I tell you love has naught to do

With meetness or unmeetness.

"Itself its best excuse, it asks
No leave of pride or fashion
When silken zone or homespun frock
It stirs with throbs of passion.

"You think me deaf and blind : you bring Your winning graces hither

As free as if from cradle-time
We two had played together.

"You tempt me with your laughing eyes,
Your cheek of sundown's blushes,
A motion as of waving grain,

A music as of thrushes.

"The plaything of your summer sport, The spells you weave around me

You cannot at your will undo,
Nor leave me as you found me.

"You go as lightly as you came,
Your life is well without me;
What care you that these hills will close
Like prison-walls about me?

"No mood is mine to seek a wife,

Or daughter for my mother: Who loves you loses in that love All power to love another!