The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows, Listened in every spray, While the whole camp with "Nell" on English meadows Wandered and lost their way.
And so in mountain solitudes--o'ertaken As by some spell divine--Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken From out the gusty pine.
Lost is that camp and wasted all its fire;
And he who wrought that spell?
Ah! towering pine and stately Kentish spire, Ye have one tale to tell!
Lost is that camp, but let its fragrant story Blend with the breath that thrills With hop-vine's incense all the pensive glory That fills the Kentish hills.
And on that grave where English oak and holly And laurel wreaths entwine, Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly, This spray of Western pine!
July, 1870.
"TWENTY YEARS"
Beg your pardon, old fellow! I think I was dreaming just now when you spoke.
The fact is, the musical clink Of the ice on your wine-goblet's brink A chord of my memory woke.
And I stood in the pasture-field where Twenty summers ago I had stood;
And I heard in that sound, I declare, The clinking of bells in the air, Of the cows coming home from the wood.
Then the apple-bloom shook on the hill;
And the mullein-stalks tilted each lance;
And the sun behind Rapalye's mill Was my uttermost West, and could thrill Like some fanciful land of romance.
Then my friend was a hero, and then My girl was an angel. In fine, I drank buttermilk; for at ten Faith asks less to aid her than when At thirty we doubt over wine.
Ah, well, it DOES seem that I must Have been dreaming just now when you spoke, Or lost, very like, in the dust Of the years that slow fashioned the crust On that bottle whose seal you last broke.
Twenty years was its age, did you say?
Twenty years? Ah, my friend, it is true!
All the dreams that have flown since that day, All the hopes in that time passed away, Old friend, I've been drinking with you!
FATE
"The sky is clouded, the rocks are bare, The spray of the tempest is white in air;
The winds are out with the waves at play, And I shall not tempt the sea to-day.
"The trail is narrow, the wood is dim, The panther clings to the arching limb;
And the lion's whelps are abroad at play, And I shall not join in the chase to-day."
But the ship sailed safely over the sea, And the hunters came from the chase in glee;
And the town that was builded upon a rock Was swallowed up in the earthquake shock.
GRANDMOTHER TENTERDEN
(MASSACHUSETTS SHORE, 1800)
I mind it was but yesterday:
The sun was dim, the air was chill;
Below the town, below the hill, The sails of my son's ship did fill,--My Jacob, who was cast away.
He said, "God keep you, mother dear,"
But did not turn to kiss his wife;
They had some foolish, idle strife;
Her tongue was like a two-edged knife, And he was proud as any peer.
Howbeit that night I took no note Of sea nor sky, for all was drear;
I marked not that the hills looked near, Nor that the moon, though curved and clear, Through curd-like scud did drive and float.
For with my darling went the joy Of autumn woods and meadows brown;
I came to hate the little town;
It seemed as if the sun went down With him, my only darling boy.
It was the middle of the night:
The wind, it shifted west-by-south,--It piled high up the harbor mouth;
The marshes, black with summer drouth, Were all abroad with sea-foam white.
It was the middle of the night:
The sea upon the garden leapt, And my son's wife in quiet slept, And I, his mother, waked and wept, When lo! there came a sudden light.
And there he stood! His seaman's dress All wet and dripping seemed to be;
The pale blue fires of the sea Dripped from his garments constantly,--I could not speak through cowardness.
"I come through night and storm," he said.
"Through storm and night and death," said he, "To kiss my wife, if it so be That strife still holds 'twixt her and me, For all beyond is peace," he said.
"The sea is His, and He who sent The wind and wave can soothe their strife And brief and foolish is our life."
He stooped and kissed his sleeping wife, Then sighed, and like a dream he went.
Now, when my darling kissed not me, But her--his wife--who did not wake, My heart within me seemed to break;
I swore a vow, nor thenceforth spake Of what my clearer eyes did see.
And when the slow weeks brought him not, Somehow we spake of aught beside:
For she--her hope upheld her pride;
And I--in me all hope had died, And my son passed as if forgot.
It was about the next springtide:
She pined and faded where she stood, Yet spake no word of ill or good;
She had the hard, cold Edwards' blood In all her veins--and so she died.
One time I thought, before she passed, To give her peace; but ere I spake Methought, "HE will be first to break The news in heaven," and for his sake I held mine back until the last.
And here I sit, nor care to roam;
I only wait to hear his call.
I doubt not that this day next fall Shall see me safe in port, where all And every ship at last comes home.
And you have sailed the Spanish Main, And knew my Jacob? . . . Eh! Mercy!
Ah! God of wisdom! hath the sea Yielded its dead to humble me?
My boy! . . . My Jacob! . . . Turn again!
GUILD'S SIGNAL
[William Guild was engineer of the train which on the 19th of April, 1813, plunged into Meadow Brook, on the line of the Stonington and Providence Railroad. It was his custom, as often as he passed his home, to whistle an "All's well" to his wife. He was found, after the disaster, dead, with his hand on the throttle-valve of his engine.]
Two low whistles, quaint and clear:
That was the signal the engineer--That was the signal that Guild, 'tis said--Gave to his wife at Providence, As through the sleeping town, and thence, Out in the night, On to the light, Down past the farms, lying white, he sped!
As a husband's greeting, scant, no doubt, Yet to the woman looking out, Watching and waiting, no serenade, Love-song, or midnight roundelay Said what that whistle seemed to say:
"To my trust true, So, love, to you!
Working or waiting, good-night!" it said.
