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.

THE SNOW-STORM

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,

Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air

Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,

And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet

Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come see the north wind’s masonry.

Out of an unseen quarry evermore

Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer

Curves his white bastions with projected roof

Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.

Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work

So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he

For number or proportion. Mockingly,

On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;

A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;

Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall,

Maugre the farmer’s sighs; and, at the gate,

A tapering turret overtops the work.

And when his hours are numbered, and the world

Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,

Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art

To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,

Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,

The frolic architecture of the snow.

PAINTING AND SCULPTURE

The sinful painter drapes his goddess warm,

Because she still is naked, being dressed:

The godlike sculptor will not so deform

Beauty, which limbs and flesh enough invest.

HOLIDAYS

From fall to spring the russet acorn,

Fruit beloved of maid and boy,

Lent itself beneath the forest,

To be the children’s toy.

Pluck it now! In vain, – thou canst not;

Its root has pierced yon shady mound;

Toy no longer – it has duties;

It is anchored in the ground.

Year by year the rose-lipped maiden,

Playfellow of young and old,

Was frolic sunshine, dear to all men,

More dear to one than mines of gold.

Whither went the lovely hoyden?

Disappeared in blessed wife;

Servant to a wooden cradle,

Living in a baby’s life.

Still thou playest; – short vacation

Fate grants each to stand aside;

Now must thou be man and artist, –

’Tis the turning of the tide.

FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ

Butler, fetch the ruby wine

Which with sudden greatness fills us;

Pour for me, who in my spirit

Fail in courage and performance.

Bring this philosophic stone,

Karun’s treasure, Noah’s age;

Haste, that by thy means I open

All the doors of luck and life.

Bring to me the liquid fire

Zoroaster sought in dust: