Kentucky Poems

THE FARMSTEAD

Yes, I love the homestead. ThereIn the spring the lilacs blewPlenteous perfume everywhere;There in summer gladioles grewParallels of scarlet glare.And the moon-hued primrose cool,Satin-soft and redolent;Honeysuckles beautiful,Filling all the air with scent;Roses red or white as wool.Roses, glorious and lush,Rich in tender-tinted dyes,Like the gay tempestuous rushOf unnumbered butterflies,Clustering o'er each bending bush.Here japonica and box,And the wayward violets;Clumps of star-enamelled phlox,And the myriad flowery jetsOf the twilight four-o'-clocks.Ah, the beauty of the place!When the June made one great rose,Full of musk and mellow grace,In the garden's humming close,Of her comely mother face!Bubble-like, the hollyhocksBudded, burst, and flaunted wideGypsy beauty from their stocks;Morning glories, bubble-dyed,Swung in honey-hearted flocks.Tawny tiger-lilies flungDoublets slashed with crimson on;Graceful slave-girls, fair and young,Like Circassians, in the sunAlabaster lilies swung.Ah, the droning of the bee;In his dusty pantaloonsTumbling in the fleurs-de-lis;In the drowsy afternoonsDreaming in the pink sweet-pea.Ah, the moaning wildwood-dove!With its throat of amethystRippled like a shining coveWhich a wind to pearl hath kissed,Moaning, moaning of its love.And the insects' gossip thin —From the summer hotness hid —In lone, leafy deeps of green;Then at eve the katydidWith its hard, unvaried din.Often from the whispering hills,Borne from out the golden dusk, —Gold with gold of daffodils, —Thrilled into the garden's muskThe wild wail of whippoorwills.From the purple-tangled trees,Like the white, full heart of night,Solemn with majestic peace,Swam the big moon, veined with light;Like some gorgeous golden-fleece.She was there with me. – And who,In the magic of the hour,Had not sworn that they could view,Beading on each blade and flowerMoony blisters of the dew?And each fairy of our home, —Firefly, – its taper litIn the honey-scented gloam,Dashing down the dusk with itLike an instant-flaming foam.And we heard the calling, calling,Of the screech-owl in the brake;Where the trumpet-vine hung, crawlingDown the ledge, into the lakeHeard the sighing streamlet falling.Then we wandered to the creekWhere the water-lilies, growingThick as stars, lay white and weak;Or against the brooklet's flowingBent and bathed a bashful cheek.And the moonlight, rippling golden,Fell in virgin aureolesOn their bosoms, half unfolden,Where, it seemed, the fairies' soulsDwelt as perfume, – unbeholden; —Or lay sleeping, pearly-tented,Baby-cribbed within each bud,While the night-wind, piney-scented,Swooning over field and flood,Rocked them on the waters dented.Then the low, melodious bellOf a sleeping heifer tinkled,In some berry-briered dell,As her satin dewlap wrinkledWith the cud that made it swell.And, returning home, we heard,In a beech-tree at the gate,Some brown, dream-behaunted bird,Singing of its absent mate,Of the mate that never heard.And, you see, now I am gray,Why within the old, old place,With such memories, I stay;Fancy out her absent faceLong since passed away.She was mine – yes! still is mine:And my frosty memoryReels about her, as with wineWarmed into young eyes that seeAll of her that was divine.Yes, I loved her, and have grownMelancholy in that love,And the memory aloneOf perfection such whereofShe could sanctify each stone.And where'er the poppies swing —There we walk, – as if a beeBent them with its airy wing, —Down her garden shadowyIn the hush the evenings bring.

A FLOWER OF THE FIELDS

Bee-bitten in the orchard hungThe peach; or, fallen in the weeds,Lay rotting, where still sucked and sungThe gray bee, boring to its seed'sPink pulp and honey blackly stung.The orchard-path, which led aroundThe garden, – with its heat one twingeOf dinning locusts, – picket-boundAnd ragged, brought me where one hingeHeld up the gate that scraped the ground.All seemed the same: the martin-box —Sun-warped with pigmy balconies —Still stood, with all its twittering flocks,Perched on its pole above the peasAnd silvery-seeded onion-stocks.The clove-pink and the rose; the clumpOf coppery sunflowers, with the heatSick to the heart: the garden stump,Red with geranium-pots, and sweetWith moss and ferns, this side the pump.I rested, with one hesitant handUpon the gate. The lonesome day,Droning with insects, made the landOne dry stagnation. Soaked with hayAnd scents of weeds the hot wind fanned.I breathed the sultry scents, my eyesParched as my lips. And yet I feltMy limbs were ice. – As one who fliesTo some wild woe. – How sleepy smeltThe hay-sweet heat that soaked the skies!Noon nodded; dreamier, lonesomerFor one long, plaintive, forest-sideBird-quaver. – And I knew me nearSome heartbreak anguish… She had died.I felt it, and no need to hear!I passed the quince and pear-tree; where,All up the porch, a grape-vine trails —How strange that fruit, whatever airOr earth it grows in, never failsTo find its native flavour there!And she was as a flower, too,That grows its proper bloom and scentNo matter what the soil: she, who,Born better than her place, still lentGrace to the lowliness she knew…They met me at the porch, and wereSad-eyed with weeping. – Then the roomShut out the country's heat and purr,And left light stricken into gloom —So love and I might look on her.

THE FEUD

Rocks, trees and rocks; and down a mossy stoneThe murmuring ooze and trickle of a streamThrough bushes, where the mountain spring lies lone, —A gleaming cairngorm where the shadows dream, —And one wild road winds like a saffron seam.Here sang the thrush, whose pure, mellifluous noteDropped golden sweetness on the fragrant June;Here cat – and blue-bird and wood-sparrow wroteTheir presence on the silence with a tune;And here the fox drank 'neath the mountain moon.Frail ferns and dewy mosses and dark brush, —Impenetrable briers, deep and dense,And wiry bushes, – brush, that seemed to crushThe struggling saplings with its tangle, whenceSprawled out the ramble of an old rail-fence.A wasp buzzed by; and then a butterflyIn orange and amber, like a floating flame;And then a man, hard-eyed and very sly,Gaunt-cheeked and haggard and a little lame,With an old rifle, down the mountain came.He listened, drinking from a flask he tookOut of the ragged pocket of his coat;Then all around him cast a stealthy look;Lay down; and watched an eagle soar and float,His fingers twitching at his hairy throat.The shades grew longer; and each Cumberland heightLoomed, framed in splendours of the dolphin dusk.Around the road a horseman rode in sight;Young, tall, blonde-bearded. Silent, grim, and brusque,He in the thicket aimed – The gun ran husk;And echoes barked among the hills and madeRepeated instants of the shot's distress. —Then silence – and the trampled bushes swayed; —Then silence, packed with murder and the pressOf distant hoofs that galloped riderless.

LYNCHERS

At the moon's down-going, let it beOn the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree…The red-rock road of the underbush,Where the woman came through the summer hush.The sumach high and the elder thick,Where we found the stone and the ragged stickThe trampled road of the thicket, fullOf footprints down to the quarry pool.The rocks that ooze with the hue of lead,Where we found her lying stark and dead.The scraggy wood; the negro hut,With its doors and windows locked and shut.A secret signal; a foot's rough tramp;A knock at the door; a lifted lamp.An oath; a scuffle; a ring of masks;A voice that answers a voice that asks.A group of shadows; the moon's red fleck;A running noose and a man's bared neck.A word, a curse, and a shape that swings;The lonely night and a bat's black wings…At the moon's down-going, let it beOn the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.

DEAD MAN'S RUN

He rode adown the autumn wood,A man dark-eyed and brown;A mountain girl before him stoodClad in a homespun gown.'To ride this road is death for you!My father waits you there;My father and my brother, too, —You know the oath they swear.'He holds her by one berry-brown wrist,And by one berry-brown hand;And he hath laughed at her and kissedHer cheek the sun hath tanned.'The feud is to the death, sweetheart;But forward will I ride.' —'And if you ride to death, sweetheart,My place is at your side.'Low hath he laughed again and kissedAnd helped her with his hand;And they have ridd'n into the mistThat belts the autumn land.And they had passed by Devil's Den,And come to Dead Man's Run,When in the brush rose up two men,Each with a levelled gun.'Down! down! my sister!' cries the one; —She gives the reins a twirl. —The other shouts, 'He shot my son!And now he steals my girl!'The rifles crack: she will not wail:He will not cease to ride:But, oh! her face is pale, is pale,And the red blood stains her side.'Sit fast, sit fast by me, sweetheart!The road is rough to ride!' —The road is rough by gulch and bluff,And her hair blows wild and wide.'Sit fast, sit fast by me, sweetheart!The bank is steep to ride!' —The bank is steep for a strong man's leap,And her eyes are staring wide.'Sit fast, sit fast by me, sweetheart!The Run is swift to ride!' —The Run is swift with mountain drift,And she sways from side to side.Is it a wash of the yellow moss,Or drift of the autumn's gold,The mountain torrent foams acrossFor the dead pine's roots to hold?Is it the bark of the sycamore,Or peel of the white birch-tree,The mountaineer on the other shoreHath followed and still can see?No mountain moss or leaves, dear heart!No bark of birchen gray! —Young hair of gold and a face death-coldThe wild stream sweeps away.

AUGUST

IClad on with glowing beauty and the peace,Benign, of calm maturity, she standsAmong her meadows and her orchard-lands,And on her mellowing gardens and her trees,Out of the ripe abundance of her handsBestows increaseAnd fruitfulness, as, wrapped in sunny ease,Blue-eyed and blonde she goesUpon her bosom Summer's richest rose.IIAnd he who follows where her footsteps lead,By hill and rock, by forest-side and stream,Shall glimpse the glory of her visible dream,In flower and fruit, in rounded nut and seed:She, in whose path the very shadows gleam;Whose humblest weedSeems lovelier than June's loveliest flower, indeed,And sweeter to the smellThan April's self within a rainy dell.IIIHers is a sumptuous simplicityWithin the fair Republic of her flowers,Where you may see her standing hours on hours,Breast-deep in gold, soft-holding up a beeTo her hushed ear; or sitting under bowersOf greenery,A butterfly a-tilt upon her knee;Or lounging on her hip,Dancing a cricket on her finger-tip.IVAy, let me breathe hot scents that tell of you;The hoary catnip and the meadow-mint,On which the honour of your touch doth printItself as odour. Let me drink the hueOf iron-weed and mist-flow'r here that hint,With purple and blue,The rapture that your presence doth imbueTheir inmost essence with,Immortal though as transient as a myth.VYea, let me feed on sounds that still assureMe where you hide: the brooks', whose happy dinTells where, the deep retired woods within,Disrobed, you bathe; the birds', whose drowsy lureTells where you slumber, your warm nestling chinSoft on the pure,Pink cushion of your palm… What better cureFor care and memory's acheThan to behold you so, and watch you wake!

THE BUSH-SPARROW

IEre wild-haws, looming in the glooms,Build bolted drifts of breezy blooms;And in the whistling hollow thereThe red-bud bends, as brown and bareAs buxom Roxy's up-stripped arm;From some gray hickory or larch,Sighed o'er the sodden meads of March,The sad heart thrills and reddens warmTo hear you braving the rough storm,Frail courier of green-gathering powers;Rebelling sap in trees and flowers;Love's minister come heralding —O sweet saint-voice among bleak bowers!O brown-red pursuivant of Spring!II'Moan' sob the woodland waters stillDown bloomless ledges of the hill;And gray, gaunt clouds like harpies hangIn harpy heavens, and swoop and clangSharp beaks and talons of the wind:Black scowl the forests, and unkindThe far fields as the near: while songSeems murdered and all beauty wrong.One weak frog only in the thawOf spawny pools wakes cold and raw,Expires a melancholy bassAnd stops as if bewildered: thenAlong the frowning wood again,Flung in the thin wind's vulture face,From woolly tassels of the proud,Red-bannered maples, long and loud,'The Spring is come! is here! her Grace! her Grace!'III'Her Grace, the Spring! her Grace! her Grace!Climbs, beautiful and sunny browed,Up, up the kindling hills and wakesBlue berries in the berry brakes:With fragrant flakes, that blow and bleach,Deep-powders smothered quince and peach:Eyes dogwoods with a thousand eyes:Teaches each sod how to be wiseWith twenty wildflowers to one weed,And kisses germs that they may seed.In purest purple and sweet whiteTreads up the happier hills of light,Bloom, cloudy-borne, song in her hairAnd balm and beam of odorous air.Winds, her retainers; and the rainsHer yeomen strong that sweep the plains:Her scarlet knights of dawn, and goldOf eve, her panoply unfold:Her herald tabarded behold!Awake to greet! prepare to sing!She comes, the darling Duchess, Spring!'

QUIET

A log-hut in the solitude,A clapboard roof to rest beneath!This side, the shadow-haunted wood;That side, the sunlight-haunted heath.At daybreak Morn shall come to meIn raiment of the white winds spun;Slim in her rosy hand the keyThat opes the gateway of the sun.Her smile shall help my heart enoughWith love to labour all the day,And cheer the road, whose rocks are rough,With her smooth footprints, each a ray.At dusk a voice shall call afar,A lone voice like the whippoorwill's;And, on her shimmering brow one star,Night shall descend the western hills.She at my door till dawn shall stand,With gothic eyes, that, dark and deep,Are mirrors of a mystic land,Fantastic with the towns of sleep.

MUSIC

Thou, oh, thou!Thou of the chorded shell and golden plectrum, thouOf the dark eyes and pale pacific brow!Music, who by the plangent waves,Or in the echoing night of labyrinthine caves,Or on God's mountains, lonely as the stars,Touchest reverberant barsOf immemorial sorrow and amaze; —Keeping regret and memory awake,And all the immortal acheOf love that leans upon the past's sweet daysIn retrospection! – now, oh, now,Interpreter and heart-physician, thouWho gazest on the heaven and the hellOf life, and singest each as well,Touch with thy all-mellifluous finger-tips,Or thy melodious lips,This sickness named my soul,Making it wholeAs is an echo of a chord,Or some symphonic word,Or sweet vibrating sigh,That deep, resurgent still doth rise and dieOn thy voluminous roll;Part of the beauty and the mysteryThat axles Earth with music; as a slave,Swinging it round and round on each sonorous pole,'Mid spheric harmony,And choral majesty,And diapasoning of wind and wave;Speeding it on its far elliptic way'Mid vasty anthemings of night and day. —O cosmic cryOf two eternities, wherein we seeThe phantasms, Death and Life,At endless strifeAbove the silence of a monster grave.

THE PURPLE VALLEYS

Far in the purple valleys of illusionI see her waiting, like the soul of music,With deep eyes, lovelier than cerulean pansies,Shadow and fire, yet merciless as poison;With red lips sweeter than Arabian storax,Yet bitterer than myrrh. O tears and kisses!O eyes and lips, that haunt my soul for ever!Again Spring walks transcendent on the mountains:The woods are hushed: the vales are blue with shadows:Above the heights, steeped in a thousand splendours,Like some vast canvas of the gods, hangs burningThe sunset's wild sciography: and slowlyThe moon treads heaven's proscenium, – night's statelyWhite queen of love and tragedy and madness.Again I know forgotten dreams and longings;Ideals lost; desires dead and buriedBeside the altar sacrifice erectedWithin the heart's high sanctuary. StrangelyAgain I know the horror and the rapture,The utterless awe, the joy akin to anguish,The terror and the worship of the spirit.Again I feel her eyes pierce through and through me;Her deep eyes, lovelier than imperial pansies,Velvet and flame, through which her fierce will holds me,Powerless and tame, and draws me on and onwardTo sad, unsatisfied and animal yearnings,Wild, unrestrained – the brute within the human —To fling me panting on her mouth and bosom.Again I feel her lips like ice and fire,Her red lips, odorous as Arabian storax,Fragrance and fire, within whose kiss destructionLies serpent-like. Intoxicating languorsResistlessly embrace me, soul and body;And we go drifting, drifting – she is laughing —Outcasts of God, into the deep's abysm.

A DREAM SHAPE

With moon-white hearts that held a gleamI gathered wild-flowers in a dream,And shaped a woman, whose sweet bloodWas odour of the wildwood bud.From dew, the starlight arrowed through,I wrought a woman's eyes of blue;The lids that on her eyeballs lay,Were rose-pale petals of the May.Out of a rosebud's veins I drewThe fragrant crimson beating throughThe languid lips of her, whose kissWas as a poppy's drowsiness.Out of the moonlight and the airI wrought the glory of her hair,That o'er her eyes' blue heaven layLike some gold cloud o'er dawn of day.I took the music of the breezeAnd water, whispering in the trees,And shaped the soul that breathed belowA woman's blossom breasts of snow.A shadow's shadow in the glassOf sleep, my spirit saw her pass:And thinking of it now, meseemsWe only live within our dreams.For in that time she was to meMore real than our reality;More real than Earth, more real than I —The unreal things that pass and die.

THE OLD BARN

Low, swallow-swept and gray,Between the orchard and the spring,All its wide windows overflowing hay,And crannied doors a-swing,The old barn stands to-day.Deep in its hay the Leghorn hidesA round white nest; and, humming softOn roof and rafter, or its log-rude sides,Black in the sun-shot loft,The building hornet glides.Along its corn-crib, cautiouslyAs thieving fingers, skulks the rat;Or in warped stalls of fragrant timothy,Gnaws at some loosened slat,Or passes shadowy.A dream of drouth made audibleBefore its door, hot, smooth, and shrillAll day the locust sings… What other spellShall hold it, lazier stillThan the long day's, now tell: —Dusk and the cricket and the strainOf tree-toad and of frog; and starsThat burn above the rich west's ribbéd stain;And dropping pasture bars,And cow-bells up the lane.Night and the moon and katydid,And leaf-lisp of the wind-touched boughs;And mazy shadows that the fireflies thrid;And sweet breath of the cows,And the lone owl here hid.

THE WOOD WITCH

There is a woodland witch who liesWith bloom-bright limbs and beam-bright eyes,Among the water-flags that rankThe slow brook's heron-haunted bank.The dragon-flies, brass-bright and blue,Are signs she works her sorcery through;Weird, wizard characters she weavesHer spells by under forest leaves, —These wait her word, like imps, uponThe gray flag-pods; their wings, of lawnAnd gauze; their bodies, gleaming green.While o'er the wet sand, – left betweenThe running water and the still, —In pansy hues and daffodil,The fancies that she doth deviseTake on the forms of butterflies,Rich-coloured. – And 'tis she you hear,Whose sleepy rune, hummed in the earOf silence, bees and beetles purr,And the dry-droning locusts whirr;Till, where the wood is very lone,Vague monotone meets monotone,And slumber is begot and born,A faery child beneath the thorn.There is no mortal who may scornThe witchery she spreads aroundHer din demesne, wherein is boundThe beauty of abandoned time,As some sweet thought 'twixt rhyme and rhyme.And through her spells you shall beholdThe blue turn gray, the gray turn goldOf hollow heaven; and the brownOf twilight vistas twinkled downWith fireflies; and in the gloomFeel the cool vowels of perfumeSlow-syllabled of weed and bloom.But, in the night, at languid rest, —When like a spirit's naked breastThe moon slips from a silver mist, —With star-bound brow, and star-wreathed wrist,If you should see her rise and waveYou welcome – ah! what thing could saveYou then? for evermore her slave!

AT SUNSET

Into the sunset's turquoise margeThe moon dips, like a pearly bargeEnchantment sails through magic seasTo fairyland Hesperides,Over the hills and away.Into the fields, in ghost-gray gown,The young-eyed Dusk comes slowly down;Her apron filled with stars she stands,And one or two slip from her handsOver the hills and away.Above the wood's black caldron bendsThe witch-faced Night and, muttering, blendsThe dew and heat, whose bubbles makeThe mist and musk that haunt the brakeOver the hills and away.Oh, come with me, and let us goBeyond the sunset lying low,Beyond the twilight and the nightInto Love's kingdom of long lightOver the hills and away.

MAY

The golden discs of the rattlesnake-weed,That spangle the woods and dance —No gleam of gold that the twilights holdIs strong as their necromance:For, under the oaks where the woodpaths lead,The golden discs of the rattlesnake-weedAre the May's own utterance.The azure stars of the bluet bloom,That sprinkle the woodland's trance —No blink of blue that a cloud lets throughIs sweet as their countenance:For, over the knolls that the woods perfume,The azure stars of the bluet bloomAre the light of the May's own glance.With her wondering words and her looks she comes,In a sunbeam of a gown;She needs but think and the blossoms wink,But look, and they shower down.By orchard ways, where the wild bee hums,With her wondering words and her looks she comesLike a little maid to town.

RAIN

IAround, the stillness deepened; then the grainWent wild with wind; and every briery laneWas swept with dust; and then, tempestuous black,Hillward the tempest heaved a monster back,That on the thunder leaned as on a cane;And on huge shoulders bore a cloudy pack,That gullied gold from many a lightning-crack:One great drop splashed and wrinkled down the pane,And then field, hill, and wood were lost in rain.IIAt last, through clouds, – as from a cavern hewnInto night's heart, – the sun burst, angry roon;And every cedar, with its weight of wet,Against the sunset's fiery splendour set,Frightened to beauty, seemed with rubies strewn:Then in drenched gardens, like sweet phantoms met,Dim odours rose of pink and mignonette;And in the East a confidence, that soonGrew to the calm assurance of the moon.

TO FALL

Sad-hearted spirit of the solitudes,Who comest through the ruin-wedded woods!Gray-gowned with fog, gold-girdled with the gloomOf tawny twilights; burdened with perfumeOf rain-wet uplands, chilly with the mist;And all the beauty of the fire-kissedCold forests crimsoning thy indolent way,Odorous of death and drowsy with decay.I think of thee as seated 'mid the showersOf languid leaves that cover up the flowers, —The little flower-sisterhoods, whom JuneOnce gave wild sweetness to, as to a tuneA singer gives her soul's wild melody, —Watching the squirrel store his granary.Or, 'mid old orchards I have pictured thee:Thy hair's profusion blown about thy back;One lovely shoulder bathed with gypsy black;Upon thy palm one nestling cheek, and sweetThe rosy russets tumbled at thy feet.Was it a voice lamenting for the flowers?A heart-sick bird that sang of happier hours?A cricket dirging days that soon must die?Or did the ghost of Summer wander by?

SUNSET IN AUTUMN

Blood-coloured oaks, that stand against a sky of gold and brass;Gaunt slopes, on which the bleak leaves glow of brier and sassafras,And broom-sedge strips of smoky-pink and pearl-gray clumps of grassIn which, beneath the ragged sky, the rain pools gleam like glass.From West to East, from wood to wood, along the forest-side,The winds, – the sowers of the Lord, – with thunderous footsteps stride;Their stormy hands rain acorns down; and mad leaves, wildly dyed,Like tatters of their rushing cloaks, stream round them far and wide.The frail leaf-cricket in the weeds rings a faint fairy bell;And like a torch of phantom ray the milkweed's windy shellGlimmers; while, wrapped in withered dreams, the wet autumnal smellOf loam and leaf, like some sad ghost, steals over field and dell.The oaks, against a copper sky – o'er which, like some black lakeOf Dis, bronze clouds, like surges fringed with sullen fire, break —Loom sombre as Doom's citadel above the vales that makeA pathway to a land of mist the moon's pale feet shall take.Now, dyed with burning carbuncle, a limbo-litten pane,Within its walls of storm, the West opens to hill and plain,On which the wild-geese ink themselves, a far triangled train,And then the shuttering clouds close down – and night is here again.