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 cardinalflowers

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 neighboring hill,

Huddled along the stone wall's shady side,

The sheep show white, as if a snow

drift still

Defied the dog-star.

open door

A drowsy smell of flowers

trope,

Through the

And white sweet-clover, and shy migno

To task their strength: and (unto Him be praise

Who giveth quietness !) the stress and strain

Of years that did the work of centuries

Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more

Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters Make glad their nooning underneath the elms

With tale and riddle and old snatch of song,

I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn The leaves of Memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'er

Old summer pictures of the quiet hills, And human life, as quiet, at their feet.

And yet not idly all. A farmer's son, Proud of field-lore and harvest craft,

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 pew-rent,

Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls

And winter pork with the least possi ble 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Outdated like a last year's almanac: Rich in broad woodlands and in halftilled fields,

And yet so pinched and bare and com fortless,

The veriest straggler limping on h rounds,

The sun and air his sole inheritance, Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes,

And hugged his rags in self-compla. cency!

Not such should be the homesteads of a land

Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell

As king and lawgiver, in broad-acre i 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

401

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 !

AMONG THE HILLS.

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.

At last, a sudden night-storm tore
The mountain veils asunder,
And swept the valleys clean before
The besom of the thunder.

Through Sandwich notch the westwind sang

Good morrow to the cotter; And once again Chocorua's horn Of shadow pierced the water.

Above his broad lake Ossipee,

Once more the sunshine wearing, Stooped, tracing on that silver shield His grim armorial bearing.

Clear drawn against the hard blue sky The peaks had winter's keenness;