Chapter 8 NATURE

~The American Partridge.~

Neglected minstrel of the single song,

Piping at twilight through the russet fields,

Thy two soft silver notes, one short, one long,

Rich with the careless joy that nature yields,

Rise from the stubble round the well-stocked fields,

Far from the chattering flock or warbling throng:

Bob White!

American! All hail, my countryman!

Thy treble, sweet or shrill, delights my ear;

A song of freedom ere our race began,

A challenger of conquest loud and clear;

Bespeaking nature pure as God's first plan,

And pride and peace, and quiet ever dear:

Bob White!

Southern Collegian.

~To a Chrysanthemum.~

Thou beauteous flower, with heart of gold,

Bravely defying winter's cold,

When dreary north winds shrilly whistle

Over the desolate fields of thistle;

Thou comest to bless in beauty's ways,

With memories of summer days,

When at the touch of gentle showers,

Decked were the fields in myriad flowers;

Yet more than all I praise to-day

This blossom bright,

Since on her breast it lay

Only last night.

JOHN ANGUS THOMPSON. Wesleyan Literary Monthly

~My Treasures.~

My jewels are the drops of dew

That sparkle on the grass,

Or break into a thousand bits

When ruthless footsteps pass.

My gold bedecks the sunlit cloud,

Untouched by human hand;

My silver is the sleeping sea,

Unshadowed by the land.

My friend is every wooded hill,

And every singing brook;

For they are always true to me,

And wear a kindly look

And yet how few would ever think

To count these treasures o'er;

But, dreaming oft of Satan's gold,

Would ask kind Heaven for more.

Co-heirs of Nature all may be,

Although of humble birth;

And yet, the miser hugs his gold,

While poor men own the earth.

WILBUR DANIEL SPENCER. Dartmouth Literary Monthly,

~A Pasture.~

Rough pasture where the blackberries grow!-

It bears upon its churlish face

No sign of beauty, art or grace;

Not here the silvery coverts glow

That April and the angler know.

There sleeps no brooklet in this wild,

Smooth-resting on its mosses sleek,

Like loving lips upon a cheek

Soft as the face of maid or child-

Just boulders, helter-skelter piled.

Ungenerous nature but endows

These acres with the stumps and stocks

Which should be trees, with rude, gray rocks;

Over these humps and hollows browse,

Daily, the awkward, shambling cows.

Here on the right, a straggling wall

Of crazy, granite stones, and there

A rotten pine-trunk, brown and bare,

A mass of huge brakes, rank and tall-

The burning blue sky over all.

And yet these blackberries! shy and chaste!

The noisy markets know no such-

So ripe they tumble when you touch;

Long, taper-rarer wines they waste

Than ever town-bred topers taste.

And tell me! have you looked o'erhead

From lawns where lazy hammocks swing

And seen such bird-throats lent a wing?

Such flames of song that flashed and fled?

Well, maybe-I'm not city-bred.

FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES. Wesleyan Literary Monthly.

~Skating Song.~

Moon so bright,

Stars alight,

Clouds adance, adance;

Snow of night,

Fleecy white,

Silver ice agleam, aglance.

High, hey, high, hey,

Skimming the smooth, bright way,

High, hey, high, hey,

Over the ice away.

Cheeks so bright,

Face alight,

Heart adance, adance;

Eyes of night,

Brow of white,

Silver skates agleam, aglance.

High, hey, high, hey,

Skimming the smooth, bright way,

High, hey, high, hey,

Over the ice away.

CORA ISABEL WARBURTON. Smith College Monthly.

~A Mystery.~

Once, a little while ago, 'twas so warm and still

Down here, in this soft, dark place. Now I feel a thrill

Darting through me. Shivering, quivering, bursts my wrappage brown,

Struggling, striving, something in me reaches up and down.

Ah! it must be death, this anguish that I cannot understand.

One inch more,-I lift my head above the parted mould,

Oh! what rapture! Falling on me something sweet and gold,

Something humming, singing, moving, growing on each side;

High above me a blue glory stretching far and wide,-

And I know 'twas life, that anguish that I could not understand.

MARY E. HOYT. Bryn Mawr Lantern.

~The Birch-Tree.~

Like a shower, breeze-suspended,

Caught and played with by the air,

April from the sky descended,

Tricked by sunshine unaware,

To a pale green fountain fashioned,

Silver shaft with airy fling,

Tremulous and sun-impassioned

Is the birch-tree in the spring.

Like the spirit of the fountain-

Seen when earth was yet a child-

Leaping, white-armed, from the mountain,

Laughing, beckoning, water-wild,

Sheen of mist her beauty veiling,

Which she only half can hide,

Garments o'er her white feet trailing,

Seems the birch at summer-tide.

E.A.H. Inlander.

~My Quest.~

Over the meadow and over the hill,

Over the heath and heather,

I seek for the spot where the dawn-wind sleeps,

And slips from its night-bound tether.

Is it here? Is it there?

Pray tell me where

The morning zephyrs tarry,

That I may bide

Where they crouch and hide,

And sip of the dew they carry.

Over the billow and over the wave,

Over the vales and valleys,

I seek for the spot where the night-wind dreams,

And rests from its twilight rallies.

Is it here? Is it there?

Pray tell me where

The breath of night lies sleeping,

That I may rest

In its downy nest,

With its breath my eyelids steeping.

W.T.O. Trinity Tablet.

~Lullaby.~

Breezes in the tree-tops high,

Sighing softly as you blow,

Sing a restful lullaby;

Sing the sweetest song you know,

Something slow, something low,-

Lulla-lullaby.

Barley heads and crested wheat,

Swaying gently to and fro,

Sing the music of the heat,

Sing the drowsiest song you know,

Something slow, something low,-

Lulla-lullaby.

Brooklet hidden in the grass,

Murmuring faintly as you flow,

Sing a sleep song while you pass;

Sing the dreamiest song you know,

Something slow, something low,-

Lulla-lullaby.

MABEL A. CARPENTER. Wellesley Magazine.

~Our Scarlet King.~

He comes along the great highway

In scarlet coat and crown,

And high the shrilling trumpets bray

And fierce his lancers frown.

Bright scarlet is his royal crest;

Bright scarlet shines his royal vest;

Oh! pr'ythee canst thou bring

A knight more nobly known and dressed

Than this, our Scarlet King.

See how he throws his largess gold

Into the bending trees.

He doth the forest walls enfold

In purple tapestries.

He giveth all a majesty;

He holds in fiel the shore, the sea;

Oh! pr'ythee come and sing

A song, and sing it merrily

To him, our Scarlet King.

Past crypt and wayside canopy,

Beyond each bloarny throne,

Full fleetly speed his heralds free

To make his advent known.

His scarlet banners bend and blow;

Our scarlet vintages shall flow;

And pr'ythee with us sing,

That proud October all may know

And hail-"our Scarlet King."

HAROLD M. BOWMAN. Inlander.

~Bob White.~

At morn, when first the rosy gleam

Of rising sun proclaimed the day,

There reached me, thro' my last sweet dream,

This oft-repeated lay:

(Too sweet for cry.

Too brief for song,

'Twas borne along

The reddening sky)

Bob White!

Daylight, Bob White!

Daylight!

At eve, when first the fading glow

Of setting sun foretold the night,

The same sweet call came, soft and low,

Across the dying light:

(Too sweet for cry,

Too brief for song,

'Twas but a long,

Contented sigh)

Bob White!

Good Night, Bob White!

Good Night!

FRANCIS CHARLES MCDONALD. Nassau Literary Monthly.

~An Evening Song.~

O red, red clouds in the westering sky,

That are lit with a lamp of gold,

The hours are faint, they sleep, they die,

The stars are earthward rolled;

Make bright day's burial-place, make bright,

So it crimson-canopied be-

It dies, and Fancy out of the night

Comes down-comes down to me.

O red, red clouds with your glory gone,

That are ghostly shapes of gray.

My lady dreams by a moon-lit lawn,

Away from me-away;

Go down-go down from the sky, so the gleams

Of the moon shine over the sea,

And bring the thought of my lady's dreams

Over to me-to me.

ROBERT L. HUNGER. Yale Courant.

~Panacea ~

When life proves disappointing,

And sorrow seems anointing

Brows of care,

Take a brace and go a-sailing,

Either dolphin back or whaling,

Anywhere.

Fling your troubles to the breezes,

Where the salted Ocean sneezes

Spray your face-

Never mind the moments flying,

There'll be left of care and sighing,

Not a trace.

ANNIE NYHAN SCEIBNER. Wisconsin Aegis.

~The Dive.~

One moment, poised above the flashing blue,

The next I'm slipping, sliding through

The water, that caresses, yields, resists,

Wrapping my sight in cooling, gray-green mists.

Another moment, my body swirls, I rise,

Shaking the water from my blinded eyes,

And strike out strong, glad that I am alive,

To swim back to the gray old pile from which I dive.

CORNELIA BROWNELL GOULD. Smith College Monthly.

~The Robin.~

A STUDY.

Abstracted, contemplative air,

A sudden run and stop,

A glance indifferent round about,

Head poised-another hop.

A plunge well-aimed, a backward tug,

A well-resisted squirm,

Then calm indifference as before.

But oh, alack, the worm!

KATHERINE VAN D. HARKEE, Vassar Miscellany.

~A Mountain Brook.~

I come from the depths of the mountain,

The dark, hidden, head of the fountain,

I spring from a nook in the ledges,

And bathe the gray granite's rough edges,

I rush over wide mossy masses

To quench the hot thirst of the grasses.

I bathe the cleft hoofs of the cattle,

As o'er the rude ford-stones I rattle.

I glide through the glens deep in shadow;

I flow in the sun-bathed meadow,

And seek, with a shake and a quiver,

The still steady flow of the river,

Then on to the wild rhythmic motion

Of my mother, the sky-tinted ocean.

CHARLES OTIS JUDKINS. Wesleyan Literary Monthly.

~In the San Joaquin.~

Across the hills the screeching blue-jays fly

In countless flocks, and as they hasten by

The children look up from their merry play

To watch them slowly, slowly fade away;

And night steals up the corners of the sky.

No silent, trembling star shines there, on high:

The hollow rivers, that were still and dry,

Begin to murmur; falls a gentle spray

Across the hills.

The stubble colors through the fallen hay,

And infant grasses pin the moistened clay;

The drooping trees shake off their dust and sigh;

And waking nature, with a gladdened eye,

Beholds the summer lose its ending day,

Across the hills.

NORMAN HUTCHINSON. Cornell Magazine.

~Four-o'clocks.~

It was that they loved the children,

The children used to say,

For there was no doubt

That when school was out,

At the same time every day,

Down by the wall,

Where the grass grew tall,

Under the hedge of the hollyhocks,

One by one,

At the touch of the sun,

There opened the four-o'clocks.

It was that they loved the children;-

But the children have gone away,

And somebody goes

When nobody knows,

At the same time every day,

To see by the wall,

Where the grass grows tall,

Under the hedge of the hollyhocks,

How, one by one,

At the touch of the sun,

Still open the four-o'clocks.

LILLIAN B. QUIMBY. Wellesley Magazine,

~The Voice of the West Wind.~

The Wind of the East and the Wind of the North

From the gates of the Sun and the Cold blow forth:

They wander wide and they wander free,

But never a word do they speak to me;

I hear but the voice I know the best,

Of my brother-in-blood the Wind of the West,

And the word that the West Wind whispers me,

Is a message, Heart of my heart, for thee.

Heart of my heart, when the skies hang low,

And all day long the light winds blow,

When the South, and the East, and the North, are gray

And the soft rain falls through the autumn day,

Then, Light of my soul, canst thou not hear

The voice of the West Wind, soft and clear?

"Come," he whispers, and "Come," again,

Leave the dull skies and the steady rain,

Leave thou the lowlands and chill gray sea,

Heart of my own heart, and come with me.

ROBERT PALFREY UTTER. Harvard Monthly

~A Fairy Barcarolle.~

My skiff is of bark from the white birch-tree,

A butterfly's wing is my sail,

And twisted grasses my cordage be,

Stretched taut by the favoring gale.

My cushions are pearly gossamers frail,

My mast is a tapering reed,

My rudder a blush-rose petal pale,

My ballast of wild-flower seed.

Through forests old and meads remote

We'll sail on the leaf-arched streams,

Down the silver rivers of Fancy float

To the golden sea of dreams.

WILLIAM HOLDEN EDDY. Brown Magazine.

~A Bird's Cradle-Song.~

Weary, weary loves!

Day is o'er and past;

Every drooping lily bell

Chimes good-night at last.

Softly! nursing winds

Swing them to and fro

With the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle of the rivulet below.

Even the willow leaves

Brooding silence keep;

All the great, good world is hushed-

Hushed that you may sleep!

But in heaven two wee, wee stars

Dance and whirl and glow

To the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle of the rivulet below.

EVELYN M. WORTHLEY. Mount Holyoke.

~The Wood Orchid.~

A butterfly, wing-weary, came to find

A sweet seclusion from the amorous wind,

Deep in the pine woods, where the dusky trees

Shut in the forest's sounding silences

With close-twined boughs from which the breeze has blown

The fragrance-breathing fragments of the cone.

Deeply she drank the nectar of repose.

Spreading her downy wings all veined with rose,

Upon the gray-green mosses, cool and dank,

Languished the sprite, and in a swoon she sank,

While a delicious numbness born of death

Stilled the soft wings that stirred with each faint breath.

One summer morning, while the languid breeze

Strayed with a languid murmur thro' the trees,

It breathed a kiss upon a folded pair

Of pink flushed wings-and found them rooted there.

College Folio.

~A Song.~

Oh, the hopper grass is clattering and flying all the day

Round the tawny, trembling tassels of the corn,

While the dreamy, drowsy bumblebee goes bumbling on his way,

And the locust in the woodland sounds his horn.

Above the rattling cottonwoods that line the lisping stream,

The crow is proudly calling to the sun,

And the beetles in the bushes make the summer day a dream,

For they hum and cheep until the day is done.

When the lotus-flower closes, and the stars are in the sky,

Then the owl awakes and sings a plaintive song,

While the crickets in the thickets sing the soothing lullaby,

And the katydid is chirping all night long.

S.P. Kansas University Weekly.

~The Skaters.~

Above the frozen floods

Gay feet keep time,

Steel-shod, their measures beat

Insistent rhyme.

No cares oppress the hearts

Glad youth makes light;

The winter skies and happy eyes

Alike are bright.

Shores where the summer waves

Have whispered low,

Echo the skaters' song,

As to and fro

Glide flitting forms,

And watch-fire's glow

Leaps into frosty air

And crimsons snow.

Fly, skaters, with wing'd feet!

The night wears on;

Be your stroke ne'er so fleet,

Night soon is gone.

With morning's dawn, the fires

In ashes lie,

And mountains keep their ward

Silently by.

GRACE W. LEACH Madisonensis.

~By the Roadside.~

Shy violets among the tangled grass;

Red robin, to thine own mate blithely singing,

Among the elm-tree boughs so gayly swinging;

My love, my true love, down this way will pass.

How shall you know her? By her sunny hair,

Her grave, sweet eyes, all pure, no evil knowing:

Oh, robin! thou wilt turn to watch her going;

There is no maid in all the land so fair.

Shy violets among the tangled grass,

Shed forth your richest perfumes 'neath her feet!

And gallant robin, when thou seest her pass,

Trill out thy merriest lay her ears to greet;

And elm-tree branches, drooping low above her,

Whisper to her that I came by and love her.

LOUISE R. LOOMIS. Wellesley Magazine.

[Illustration: A WELLESLEY GIRL.]

~"A White Morning"~

Many a morning the trees' slim fingers

Lift to the blue their frosted tips;

Winter has paused beside them, passing,

And blown upon them, through icy lips.

After the day has dawned in earnest,

Comes a blaze from the soul of things.

Some small snow-bird, beneath the window,

Beats out life, from his restless wings.

Never trust to the cold and silence;

Suns will rise, and the day climb higher.

Under the snows are resurrections;

Under the frost is hidden fire.

GRACE W. LEACH. Madisonensis.