Within, without the idle earth
Stars weave eternal rings;
The sun himself shines heartily,
And shares the joy he brings.
And what if trade sow cities
Like shells along the shore,
And thatch with towns the prairie broad
With railways ironed o'er ;—
They are but sailing foam-bells
Along Thought's causing stream,
And take their shape and sun-colour
From him that sends the dream.
For Destiny does not like
To yield to men the helm,
And shoots his thought by hidden nerves Throughout the solid realm.
The patient Dæmon sits
With roses and a shroud;
He has his way, and deals his gifts—
But ours is not allowed.
He is no churl or trifler,
And his viceroy is none,
Love-without-weakness,
Of genius sire and son;
And his will is not thwarted,-
The seeds of land and sea
Are the atoms of his body bright,
And his behest obey.
He serveth the servant,
The brave he loves amain,
He kills the cripple and the sick,
And straight begins again;
For gods delight in gods,
And thrust the weak aside;
To him who scorns their charities
Their arms fly open wide.
When the old world is sterile,
And the ages are effete,
He will from wrecks and sediment
The fairer world complete.
He forbids to despair,
His cheeks mantle with mirth,
And the unimagined good of men
Is yeaning at the birth.
Spring still makes spring in the mind
When sixty years are told;
Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,
And we are never old.
Over the winter glaciers
I see the summer glow,
And through the wild-piled snowdrift
The warm rose buds below.
MINOTT, Lee, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint,
Possessed the land, which rendered to their toil
Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool, and wood.
Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm,
Saying, ""Tis mine, my children's, and my name's.
How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees;
How graceful climb those shadows on my hill ;
I fancy those pure waters and the flies
Know me as does my dog: we sympathize,
And, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil."
Where are those men? Asleep beneath their grounds,
And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.
Earth laughs in flowers to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave.—
They added ridge to valley, brook to pond,
And sighed for all that bounded their domain ;-
"This suits me for a pasture; that's my park;
We must have clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge,
And misty lowland where to go for peat.
The land is well,-lies fairly to the south.
'Tis good, when you have crossed the sea and back,
To find the sitfast acres where you left them.”
Ah! the hot owner sees not Death, who adds
Him to his land, a lump of mould the more.
Hear what the Earth says:-
EARTH-SONG.
Mine and yours,—
Mine, not yours.
Earth endures,
Stars abide,
Shine down in the old sea;
Old are the shores,
But where are old men? .
I, who have seen much,
Such have I never seen.
The lawyer's deed
To them and to their heirs
Who shall succeed
Without fail
For evermore.
Here is the land,
Shaggy with wood,
With its old valley,
Mound, and flood.—
But the heritors--
Fled like the flood's foam;
The lawyer, and the laws,
And the kingdom,
Clean swept herefrom.
They called me theirs,
Who so controlled me;
Yet every one
Wished to stay, and is gone.
How am I theirs,
If they cannot hold me,
But I hold them?
When I heard the Earth-song,
I was no longer brave;
My avarice cooled
Like lust in the chill of the grave.
FOR this present, hard
Is the fortune of the bard
Born out of time;
All his accomplishment
From Nature's utmost treasure spent
Booteth not him.
When the pine tosses its cones
To the song of its waterfall tones,
He speeds to the woodland walks,
To birds and trees he talks.
Cæsar of his leafy Rome,
There the poet is at home.
He goes to the river side,-
Not hook nor line hath he:
He stands in the meadows wide,-
Nor gun nor scythe to see;
With none has he to do,
And none seek him,
Nor men below,
Nor spirits dim.
Sure some good his eye enchants;
What he knows nobody wants.
In the wood he travels, glad
Without better fortune had,-
Melancholy without bad.
Planter of celestial plants,
What he knows nobody wants,-
What he knows he hides, not vaunts.
Knowledge this man prizes best
Seems fantastic to the rest;
Pondering shadows, colours, clouds,
Grass-buds, and caterpillars' shrouds,
Boughs on which the wild bees settle,
Tints that spot the violet's petal,
Why Nature loves the number five,
And why the star-form she repeats.
Lover of all things alive,
Wonderer at all he meets,
Wonderer chiefly at himself,-
Who can tell him what he is,
Or how meet in human elf
Coming and past eternities?
And such I knew, a forest seer,
A minstrel of the natural year,
Forteller of the vernal ides,
Wise harbinger of spheres and tides,
A lover true who knew by heart
Each joy the mountain-dales impart ;
It seemed that Nature could not raise
A plant in any secret place,
In quaking bog, on snowy hill,
Beneath the grass that shades the rill,
Under the snow, between the rocks,
In damp fields known to bird and fox,
But he would come in the very hour
It opened in its virgin bower,
As if a sunbeam showed the place,
And tell its long-descended race.
It seemed as if the breezes brought him,
It seemed as if the sparrows taught him,
As if by secret sight he knew
Where in far fields the orchis grew.
There are many events in the field
Which are not shown to common eyes,
But all her shows did Nature yield
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