Evolution of Expression, Volume 2—Revised

11. Lifted far above all harm of fowler or impediment of mountain, wild fowl are steadily flying southward. The simple sight of them fills the imagination with pictures. They have all summer long called to each other from the reedy fens and wild oat-fields of the far north. Summer is already extinguished there.

12. Winter is following their track, and marching steadily toward us. The spent flowers, the seared leaves, the thinning tree-tops, the morning frost, have borne witness of a change on earth; and these caravans of the upper air confirm the tidings. Summer is gone; winter is coming!

13. The wind has risen to-day. It is not one of those gusty, playful winds that frolic with the trees. It is a wind high up in air, that moves steadily, with a solemn sound, as if it were the spirit of summer journeying past us; and, impatient of delay, it does not stoop to the earth, but touches the tops of the trees, with a murmuring sound, sighing a sad farewell and passing on.

14. Such days fill one with pleasant sadness. How sweet a pleasure is there in sadness! It is not sorrow; it is not despondency; it is not gloom! It is one of the moods of joy. At any rate I am very happy, and yet it is sober, and very sad happiness. It is the shadow of joy upon the soul! I can reason about these changes. I can cover over the dying leaves with imaginations as bright as their own hues; and, by Christian faith, transfigure the whole scene with a blessed vision of joyous dying and glorious resurrection.

15. But what then? Such thoughts glow like evening clouds, and not far beneath them are the evening twilights, into whose dusk they will soon melt away. And all communions, and all admirations, and all associations, celestial or terrene, come alike into a pensive sadness, that is even sweeter than our joy. It is the minor key of our thoughts.

Henry Ward Beecher.

MIDSUMMER

IAround this lovely valley riseThe purple hills of Paradise.O, softly on yon banks of hazeHer rosy face the Summer lays!Becalmed along the azure sky,The argosies of Cloudland lie,Whose shores, with many a shining rift,Far off their pearl-white peaks uplift.IIThrough all the long midsummer dayThe meadow-sides are sweet with hay.I seek the coolest sheltered seat,Just where the field and forest meet, —Where grow the pine trees tall and bland,The ancient oaks austere and grand,And fringy roots and pebbles fretThe ripples of the rivulet.IIII watch the mowers, as they goThrough the tall grass a white-sleeved row.With even stroke their scythes they swing,In tune their merry whetstones ring.Behind, the nimble youngsters run,And toss the thick swaths in the sun.The cattle graze, while, warm and still,Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill,And bright, where summer breezes break,The green wheat crinkles like a lake.IVThe butterfly and humble beeCome to the pleasant woods with me;Quickly before me runs the quail,Her chickens skulk behind the rail;High up the lone wood-pigeon sits,And the woodpecker pecks and flits,Sweet woodland music sinks and swells,The brooklet rings its tinkling bells,The swarming insects drone and hum,The partridge beats his throbbing drum,The squirrel leaps among the boughs,And chatters in his leafy house,The oriole flashes by; and, look!Into the mirror of the brook,Where the vain bluebird trims his coat,Two tiny feathers fall and float.VAs silently, as tenderly,The down of peace descends on me.O, this is peace! I have no needOf friend to talk, of book to read.A dear Companion here abides;Close to my thrilling heart He hides;The holy silence is His voice:I lie and listen and rejoice.J. T. Trowbridge

THE KITTEN AND FALLING LEAVES

IThat way look, my Infant, lo!What a pretty baby-show!See the Kitten on the wall,Sporting with the leaves that fall,Withered leaves – one – two – and three —From the lofty elder-tree!IIThrough the calm and frosty airOf this morning bright and fair,Eddying round and round they sinkSlowly, slowly: one might think,From the motions that are made,Every little leaf conveyedSylph or Faery hither tending, —To this lower world descending,Each invisible and mute,In his wavering parachute.III– But the Kitten, how she starts,Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!First at one, and then its fellowJust as light and just as yellow;There are many now – now one —Now they stop and there are none.What intenseness of desireIn her upward eye of fire!IVWith a tiger-leap half-wayNow she meets the coming prey,Lets it go as fast, and thenHas it in her power again:Now she works with three or four,Like an Indian conjurer;Quick as he in feats of art,Far beyond in joy of heart.VWere her antics played in the eyeOf a thousand standers-by,Clapping hands with shout and stare,What would little Tabby careFor the plaudits of the crowd?Over happy to be proud,Over wealthy in the treasureOf her own exceeding pleasure!VISuch a light of gladness breaks,Pretty Kitten! from thy freaks, —Spreads with such a living graceO'er my little Dora's face;Yes, the sight so stirs and charmsThee, Baby, laughing in my arms,That almost I could repineThat your transports are not mine,That I do not wholly fareEven as ye do, thoughtless pair!And I will have my careless seasonSpite of melancholy reason,Will walk through life in such a wayThat, when time brings on decay,Now and then I may possessHours of perfect gladsomeness.VII– Pleased by any random toy;By a kitten's busy joy,Or an infant's laughing eyeSharing in the ecstasy;I would fare like that or this,Find my wisdom in my bliss;Keep the sprightly soul awake,And have faculties to take,Even from things by sorrow wrought,Matter for a jocund thought,Spite of care, and spite of grief,To gambol with Life's falling Leaf.William Wordsworth.

SUMMER STORM

IUntremulous in the river clear,Toward the sky's image, hangs the imaged bridge;So still the air that I can hearThe slender clarion of the unseen midge;Out of the stillness, with a gathering creep,Like rising wind in leaves, which now decreases,Now lulls, now swells, and all the while increases,The huddling trample of a drove of sheepTilts the loose planks, and then as gradually ceasesIn dust on the other side; life's emblem deep,A confused noise between two silences,Finding at last in dust precarious peace.IIOn the wide marsh the purple-blossomed grassesSoak up the sunshine; sleeps the brimming tide,Save when the wedge-shaped wake in silence passesOf some slow water-rat, whose sinuous glideWavers the long green sedge's shade from side to side;But up the west, like a rock-shivered surge,Climbs a great cloud edged with sun-whitened spray;Huge whirls of foam boil toppling o'er its verge,And falling still it seems, and yet it climbs alway.IIISuddenly all the sky is hidAs with the shutting of a lid,One by one great drops are fallingDoubtful and slow,Down the pane they are crookedly crawling,And the wind breathes low;Slowly the circles widen on the river,Widen and mingle, one and all;Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver,Struck by an icy rain-drop's fall.IVNow on the hills I hear the thunder mutter,The wind is gathering in the west;The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter,Then droop to a fitful rest;Up from the stream with sluggish flapStruggles the gull and floats away;Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap,We shall not see the sun go down to-day:Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh,And tramples the grass with terrified feet,The startled river turns leaden and harsh.You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat.VLook! look! that livid flash!And instantly follows the rattling thunder,As if some cloud-crag, split asunder,Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash,On the Earth, which crouches in silence under;And now a solid gray wall of rainShuts off the landscape, mile by mile;For a breath's space I see the blue wood again,And, ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile,That seemed but now a league aloof,Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched roof;Against the windows the storm comes dashing,Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing,The blue lightning flashes,The rapid hail clashes,The white waves are tumbling,And, in one baffled roar,Like the toothless sea mumblingA rock-bristled shore,The thunder is rumblingAnd crashing and crumbling, —Will silence return never more?VIHush! Still as death,The tempest holds his breathAs from a sudden will;The rain stops short, but from the eavesYou see it drop, and hear it from the leaves,All is so bodingly still;Again, now, now, againPlashes the rain in heavy gouts,The crinkled lightningSeems ever brightening,And loud and longAgain the thunder shoutsHis battle-song, —One quivering flash,One wildering crash,Followed by silence dead and dull,As if the cloud, let go,Leapt bodily belowTo whelm the earth in one mad overthrow,And then a total lull.VIIGone, gone, so soon!No more my half-crazed fancy thereCan shape a giant in the air,No more I see his streaming hair,The writhing portent of his form;The pale and quiet moonMakes her calm forehead bare,And the last fragments of the storm,Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea,Silent and few, are drifting over me.James Russell Lowell.

JAQUES' SEVEN AGES OF MAN

All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely players:They have their exits, and their entrances;And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.And then, the whining school-boy, with his satchel,And shining morning face, creeping, like snail,Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,Sighing like furnace, with a woeful balladMade to his mistress' eyebrow. Then the soldier,Full of strange oaths, and bearded like a pard,Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice,In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,Full of wise saws and modern instances,And so he plays his part. The sixth age shiftsInto the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wideFor his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,Turning again toward childish treble, pipesAnd whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,That ends this strange, eventful history,Is second childishness, and mere oblivion;Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.William Shakespeare.