SparkNotes

Part II, Section 3:
NATURE.

I.	1

MOTHER NATURE.

Nature, the gentlest mother,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest,—	5
Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.	10

How fair her conversation,

A summer afternoon,—

Her household, her assembly;

And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles	15
Incites the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep
She turns as long away	20
As will suffice to light her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky

With infinite affection
And infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,	25
Wills silence everywhere.

II.

OUT OF THE MORNING.

Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?	30
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like water-lilies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Is it brought from famous countries	35
Of which I have never heard?

Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor!
Oh, some wise man from the skies!
Please to tell a little pilgrim
Where the place called morning lies!	40

III.

At half-past three a single bird
Unto a silent sky
Propounded but a single term
Of cautious melody.	45

At half-past four, experiment

Had subjugated test,

And lo! her silver principle

Supplanted all the rest.

At half-past seven, element	50
Nor implement was seen,
And place was where the presence was,
Circumference between.

IV.

DAY'S PARLOR.	55

The day came slow, till five o'clock,

Then sprang before the hills

Like hindered rubies, or the light

A sudden musket spills.

The purple could not keep the east,	60
The sunrise shook from fold,
Like breadths of topaz, packed a night,
The lady just unrolled.

The happy winds their timbrels took;
The birds, in docile rows,	65
Arranged themselves around their prince
(The wind is prince of those).

The orchard sparkled like a Jew,—
How mighty 't was, to stay
A guest in this stupendous place,	70
The parlor of the day!

V.

THE SUN'S WOOING.

The sun just touched the morning;
The morning, happy thing,	75
Supposed that he had come to dwell,
And life would be all spring.

She felt herself supremer,—
A raised, ethereal thing;
Henceforth for her what holiday!	80
Meanwhile, her wheeling king

Trailed slow along the orchards
His haughty, spangled hems,
Leaving a new necessity,—
The want of diadems!	85

The morning fluttered, staggered,

Felt feebly for her crown,—

Her unanointed forehead

Henceforth her only one.

VI.	90

THE ROBIN.

The robin is the one
That interrupts the morn
With hurried, few, express reports
When March is scarcely on.	95

The robin is the one

That overflows the noon

With her cherubic quantity,

An April but begun.

The robin is the one	100
That speechless from her nest
Submits that home and certainty
And sanctity are best.

VII.

THE BUTTERFLY'S DAY.	105

From cocoon forth a butterfly

As lady from her door

Emerged—a summer afternoon—

Repairing everywhere,

Without design, that I could trace,	110
Except to stray abroad
On miscellaneous enterprise
The clovers understood.

Her pretty parasol was seen
Contracting in a field	115
Where men made hay, then struggling hard
With an opposing cloud,

Where parties, phantom as herself,
To Nowhere seemed to go
In purposeless circumference,	120
As 't were a tropic show.

And notwithstanding bee that worked,
And flower that zealous blew,
This audience of idleness
Disdained them, from the sky,	125

Till sundown crept, a steady tide,

And men that made the hay,

And afternoon, and butterfly,

Extinguished in its sea.

VIII.	130

THE BLUEBIRD.

Before you thought of spring,
Except as a surmise,
You see, God bless his suddenness,
A fellow in the skies	135
Of independent hues,
A little weather-worn,
Inspiriting habiliments
Of indigo and brown.

With specimens of song,	140
As if for you to choose,
Discretion in the interval,
With gay delays he goes
To some superior tree
Without a single leaf,	145
And shouts for joy to nobody
But his seraphic self!

IX.

APRIL.

An altered look about the hills;	150
A Tyrian light the village fills;
A wider sunrise in the dawn;
A deeper twilight on the lawn;
A print of a vermilion foot;
A purple finger on the slope;	155
A flippant fly upon the pane;
A spider at his trade again;
An added strut in chanticleer;
A flower expected everywhere;
An axe shrill singing in the woods;	160
Fern-odors on untravelled roads,—
All this, and more I cannot tell,
A furtive look you know as well,
And Nicodemus' mystery
Receives its annual reply.	165

X.

THE SLEEPING FLOWERS.

"Whose are the little beds," I asked,
"Which in the valleys lie?"
Some shook their heads, and others smiled,	170
And no one made reply.

"Perhaps they did not hear," I said;
"I will inquire again.
Whose are the beds, the tiny beds
So thick upon the plain?"	175

"'T is daisy in the shortest;

A little farther on,

Nearest the door to wake the first,

Little leontodon.

"'T is iris, sir, and aster,	180
Anemone and bell,
Batschia in the blanket red,
And chubby daffodil."

Meanwhile at many cradles
Her busy foot she plied,	185
Humming the quaintest lullaby
That ever rocked a child.

"Hush! Epigea wakens!—
The crocus stirs her lids,
Rhodora's cheek is crimson,—	190
She's dreaming of the woods."

Then, turning from them, reverent,
"Their bed-time 't is," she said;
"The bumble-bees will wake them
When April woods are red."	195

XI.

MY ROSE.

Pigmy seraphs gone astray,
Velvet people from Vevay,
Belles from some lost summer day,	200
Bees' exclusive coterie.
Paris could not lay the fold
Belted down with emerald;
Venice could not show a cheek
Of a tint so lustrous meek.	205
Never such an ambuscade
As of brier and leaf displayed
For my little damask maid.
I had rather wear her grace
Than an earl's distinguished face;	210
I had rather dwell like her
Than be Duke of Exeter
Royalty enough for me
To subdue the bumble-bee!

XII.	215

THE ORIOLE'S SECRET.

To hear an oriole sing

May be a common thing,

Or only a divine.

It is not of the bird	220
Who sings the same, unheard,
As unto crowd.

The fashion of the ear
Attireth that it hear
In dun or fair.	225

So whether it be rune,

Or whether it be none,

Is of within;

The "tune is in the tree,"
The sceptic showeth me;	230
"No, sir! In thee!"

XIII.

THE ORIOLE.

One of the ones that Midas touched,
Who failed to touch us all,	235
Was that confiding prodigal,
The blissful oriole.

So drunk, he disavows it
With badinage divine;
So dazzling, we mistake him	240
For an alighting mine.

A pleader, a dissembler,
An epicure, a thief,—
Betimes an oratorio,
An ecstasy in chief;	245

The Jesuit of orchards,

He cheats as he enchants

Of an entire attar

For his decamping wants.

The splendor of a Burmah,	250
The meteor of birds,
Departing like a pageant
Of ballads and of bards.

I never thought that Jason sought
For any golden fleece;	255
But then I am a rural man,
With thoughts that make for peace.

But if there were a Jason,
Tradition suffer me
Behold his lost emolument	260
Upon the apple-tree.

XIV.

IN SHADOW.

I dreaded that first robin so,
But he is mastered now,	265
And I 'm accustomed to him grown,—
He hurts a little, though.

I thought if I could only live
Till that first shout got by,
Not all pianos in the woods	270
Had power to mangle me.

I dared not meet the daffodils,
For fear their yellow gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own.	275

I wished the grass would hurry,

So when 't was time to see,

He 'd be too tall, the tallest one

Could stretch to look at me.

I could not bear the bees should come,	280
I wished they 'd stay away
In those dim countries where they go:
What word had they for me?

They 're here, though; not a creature failed,
No blossom stayed away	285
In gentle deference to me,
The Queen of Calvary.

Each one salutes me as he goes,
And I my childish plumes
Lift, in bereaved acknowledgment	290
Of their unthinking drums.

XV.

THE HUMMING-BIRD.

A route of evanescence
With a revolving wheel;	295
A resonance of emerald,
A rush of cochineal;
And every blossom on the bush
Adjusts its tumbled head,—
The mail from Tunis, probably,	300
An easy morning's ride.

XVI.

SECRETS.

The skies can't keep their secret!
They tell it to the hills—	305
The hills just tell the orchards—
And they the daffodils!

A bird, by chance, that goes that way
Soft overheard the whole.
If I should bribe the little bird,	310
Who knows but she would tell?

I think I won't, however,
It's finer not to know;
If summer were an axiom,
What sorcery had snow?	315

So keep your secret, Father!

I would not, if I could,

Know what the sapphire fellows do,

In your new-fashioned world!

XVII.	320

Who robbed the woods,
The trusting woods?
The unsuspecting trees
Brought out their burrs and mosses
His fantasy to please.	325
He scanned their trinkets, curious,
He grasped, he bore away.
What will the solemn hemlock,
What will the fir-tree say?

XVIII.	330

TWO VOYAGERS.

Two butterflies went out at noon
And waltzed above a stream,
Then stepped straight through the firmament
And rested on a beam;	335

And then together bore away

Upon a shining sea,—

Though never yet, in any port,

Their coming mentioned be.

If spoken by the distant bird,	340
If met in ether sea
By frigate or by merchantman,
Report was not to me.

XIX.

BY THE SEA.	345

I started early, took my dog,

And visited the sea;

The mermaids in the basement

Came out to look at me,

And frigates in the upper floor	350
Extended hempen hands,
Presuming me to be a mouse
Aground, upon the sands.

But no man moved me till the tide
Went past my simple shoe,	355
And past my apron and my belt,
And past my bodice too,

And made as he would eat me up
As wholly as a dew
Upon a dandelion's sleeve—	360
And then I started too.

And he—he followed close behind;
I felt his silver heel
Upon my ankle,—then my shoes
Would overflow with pearl.	365

Until we met the solid town,

No man he seemed to know;

And bowing with a mighty look

At me, the sea withdrew.

XX.	370

OLD-FASHIONED.

Arcturus is his other name,—
I'd rather call him star!
It's so unkind of science
To go and interfere!	375

I pull a flower from the woods,—

A monster with a glass

Computes the stamens in a breath,

And has her in a class.

Whereas I took the butterfly	380
Aforetime in my hat,
He sits erect in cabinets,
The clover-bells forgot.

What once was heaven, is zenith now.
Where I proposed to go	385
When time's brief masquerade was done,
Is mapped, and charted too!

What if the poles should frisk about
And stand upon their heads!
I hope I 'm ready for the worst,	390
Whatever prank betides!

Perhaps the kingdom of Heaven 's changed!
I hope the children there
Won't be new-fashioned when I come,
And laugh at me, and stare!	395

I hope the father in the skies

Will lift his little girl,—

Old-fashioned, naughty, everything,—

Over the stile of pearl!

XXI.	400

A TEMPEST.

An awful tempest mashed the air,
The clouds were gaunt and few;
A black, as of a spectre's cloak,
Hid heaven and earth from view.	405

The creatures chuckled on the roofs

And whistled in the air,

And shook their fists and gnashed their teeth.

And swung their frenzied hair.

The morning lit, the birds arose;	410
The monster's faded eyes
Turned slowly to his native coast,
And peace was Paradise!

XXII.

THE SEA.	415

An everywhere of silver,

With ropes of sand

To keep it from effacing

The track called land.

XXIII.	420

IN THE GARDEN.

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.	425

And then he drank a dew

From a convenient grass,

And then hopped sidewise to the wall

To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes	430
That hurried all abroad,—
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,	435
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,	440
Leap, plashless, as they swim.

XXIV.

THE SNAKE.

A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;	445
You may have met him,—did you not,
His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet	450
And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,	455

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash

Unbraiding in the sun,—

When, stooping to secure it,

It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature's people	460
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,	465
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

XXV.

THE MUSHROOM.

The mushroom is the elf of plants,	470
At evening it is not;
At morning in a truffled hut
It stops upon a spot

As if it tarried always;
And yet its whole career	475
Is shorter than a snake's delay,
And fleeter than a tare.

'T is vegetation's juggler,
The germ of alibi;
Doth like a bubble antedate,	480
And like a bubble hie.

I feel as if the grass were pleased
To have it intermit;
The surreptitious scion
Of summer's circumspect.	485

Had nature any outcast face,

Could she a son contemn,

Had nature an Iscariot,

That mushroom,—it is him.

XXVI.	490

THE STORM.

There came a wind like a bugle;
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass	495
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost;
The doom's electric moccason
That very instant passed.
On a strange mob of panting trees,	500
And fences fled away,
And rivers where the houses ran
The living looked that day.
The bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings whirled.	505
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the world!

XXVII.

THE SPIDER.	510

A spider sewed at night
Without a light
Upon an arc of white.
If ruff it was of dame
Or shroud of gnome,	515
Himself, himself inform.
Of immortality
His strategy
Was physiognomy.

XXVIII.	520

I know a place where summer strives

With such a practised frost,

She each year leads her daisies back,

Recording briefly, "Lost."

But when the south wind stirs the pools	525
And struggles in the lanes,
Her heart misgives her for her vow,
And she pours soft refrains

Into the lap of adamant,
And spices, and the dew,	530
That stiffens quietly to quartz,
Upon her amber shoe.

XXIX.

The one that could repeat the summer day
Were greater than itself, though he	535
Minutest of mankind might be.
And who could reproduce the sun,
At period of going down—
The lingering and the stain, I mean—
When Orient has been outgrown,	540
And Occident becomes unknown,
His name remain.

XXX.

THE WlND'S VISIT.

The wind tapped like a tired man,	545
And like a host, "Come in,"
I boldly answered; entered then
My residence within

A rapid, footless guest,
To offer whom a chair	550
Were as impossible as hand
A sofa to the air.

No bone had he to bind him,
His speech was like the push
Of numerous humming-birds at once	555
From a superior bush.

His countenance a billow,
His fingers, if he pass,
Let go a music, as of tunes
Blown tremulous in glass.	560

He visited, still flitting;

Then, like a timid man,

Again he tapped—'t was flurriedly—

And I became alone.

XXXI.	565

Nature rarer uses yellow

Than another hue;

Saves she all of that for sunsets,—

Prodigal of blue,

Spending scarlet like a woman,	570
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly,
Like a lover's words.

XXXII.

GOSSIP.	575

The leaves, like women, interchange

Sagacious confidence;

Somewhat of nods, and somewhat of

Portentous inference,

The parties in both cases	580
Enjoining secrecy,—
Inviolable compact
To notoriety.

XXXIII.

SIMPLICITY.	585

How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And does n't care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown	590
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity.	595

XXXIV.

STORM.

It sounded as if the streets were running,
And then the streets stood still.
Eclipse was all we could see at the window,	600
And awe was all we could feel.

By and by the boldest stole out of his covert,
To see if time was there.
Nature was in her beryl apron,
Mixing fresher air.	605

XXXV.

THE RAT.

The rat is the concisest tenant.
He pays no rent,—
Repudiates the obligation,	610
On schemes intent.

Balking our wit
To sound or circumvent,
Hate cannot harm
A foe so reticent.	615

Neither decree

Prohibits him,

Lawful as

Equilibrium.

XXXVI.	620

Frequently the woods are pink,

Frequently are brown;

Frequently the hills undress

Behind my native town.

Oft a head is crested	625
I was wont to see,
And as oft a cranny
Where it used to be.

And the earth, they tell me,
On its axis turned,—	630
Wonderful rotation
By but twelve performed!

XXXVII.

A THUNDER-STORM.

The wind begun to rock the grass	635
With threatening tunes and low,—
He flung a menace at the earth,
A menace at the sky.

The leaves unhooked themselves from trees
And started all abroad;	640
The dust did scoop itself like hands
And throw away the road.

The wagons quickened on the streets,
The thunder hurried slow;
The lightning showed a yellow beak,	645
And then a livid claw.

The birds put up the bars to nests,
The cattle fled to barns;
There came one drop of giant rain,
And then, as if the hands	650

That held the dams had parted hold,

The waters wrecked the sky,

But overlooked my father's house,

Just quartering a tree.

XXXVIII.	655

WITH FLOWERS.

South winds jostle them,
Bumblebees come,
Hover, hesitate,
Drink, and are gone.	660

Butterflies pause

On their passage Cashmere;

I, softly plucking,

Present them here!

XXXIX.	665

SUNSET.

Where ships of purple gently toss
On seas of daffodil,
Fantastic sailors mingle,
And then—the wharf is still.	670

XL.

She sweeps with many-colored brooms,
And leaves the shreds behind;
Oh, housewife in the evening west,
Come back, and dust the pond!	675

You dropped a purple ravelling in,

You dropped an amber thread;

And now you 've littered all the East

With duds of emerald!

And still she plies her spotted brooms,	680
And still the aprons fly,
Till brooms fade softly into stars—
And then I come away.

XLI.

Like mighty footlights burned the red	685
At bases of the trees,—
The far theatricals of day
Exhibiting to these.

'T was universe that did applaud
While, chiefest of the crowd,	690
Enabled by his royal dress,
Myself distinguished God.

XLII.

PROBLEMS.

Bring me the sunset in a cup,	695
Reckon the morning's flagons up,
And say how many dew;
Tell me how far the morning leaps,
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadths of blue!	700

Write me how many notes there be
In the new robin's ecstasy
Among astonished boughs;
How many trips the tortoise makes,
How many cups the bee partakes,—	705
The debauchee of dews!

Also, who laid the rainbow's piers,
Also, who leads the docile spheres
By withes of supple blue?
Whose fingers string the stalactite,	710
Who counts the wampum of the night,
To see that none is due?

Who built this little Alban house
And shut the windows down so close
My spirit cannot see?	715
Who 'll let me out some gala day,
With implements to fly away,
Passing pomposity?

XLIII.

THE JUGGLER OF DAY.	720

Blazing in gold and quenching in purple,

Leaping like leopards to the sky,

Then at the feet of the old horizon

Laying her spotted face, to die;

Stooping as low as the otter's window,	725
Touching the roof and tinting the barn,
Kissing her bonnet to the meadow,—
And the juggler of day is gone!

XLIV.

MY CRICKET.	730

Farther in summer than the birds,

Pathetic from the grass,

A minor nation celebrates

Its unobtrusive mass.

No ordinance is seen,	735
So gradual the grace,
A pensive custom it becomes,
Enlarging loneliness.

Antiquest felt at noon
When August, burning low,	740
Calls forth this spectral canticle,
Repose to typify.

Remit as yet no grace,
No furrow on the glow,
Yet a druidic difference	745
Enhances nature now.

XLV.

As imperceptibly as grief
The summer lapsed away,—
Too imperceptible, at last,	750
To seem like perfidy.

A quietness distilled,
As twilight long begun,
Or Nature, spending with herself
Sequestered afternoon.	755

The dusk drew earlier in,

The morning foreign shone,—

A courteous, yet harrowing grace,

As guest who would be gone.

And thus, without a wing,	760
Or service of a keel,
Our summer made her light escape
Into the beautiful.

XLVI.

It can't be summer,—that got through;	765
It 's early yet for spring;
There 's that long town of white to cross
Before the blackbirds sing.

It can't be dying,—it's too rouge,—
The dead shall go in white.	770
So sunset shuts my question down
With clasps of chrysolite.

XLVII.

SUMMER'S OBSEQUIES.

The gentian weaves her fringes,	775
The maple's loom is red.
My departing blossoms
Obviate parade.

A brief, but patient illness,
An hour to prepare;	780
And one, below this morning,
Is where the angels are.

It was a short procession,—
The bobolink was there,
An aged bee addressed us,	785
And then we knelt in prayer.

We trust that she was willing,—
We ask that we may be.
Summer, sister, seraph,
Let us go with thee!	790

In the name of the bee

And of the butterfly

And of the breeze, amen!

XLVIII.

FRINGED GENTIAN.	795

God made a little gentian;
It tried to be a rose
And failed, and all the summer laughed.
But just before the snows
There came a purple creature	800
That ravished all the hill;
And summer hid her forehead,
And mockery was still.
The frosts were her condition;
The Tyrian would not come	805
Until the North evoked it.
"Creator! shall I bloom?"

XLIX.

NOVEMBER.

Besides the autumn poets sing,	810
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the haze.

A few incisive mornings,
A few ascetic eyes,—	815
Gone Mr. Bryant's golden-rod,
And Mr. Thomson's sheaves.

Still is the bustle in the brook,
Sealed are the spicy valves;
Mesmeric fingers softly touch	820
The eyes of many elves.

Perhaps a squirrel may remain,
My sentiments to share.
Grant me, O Lord, a sunny mind,
Thy windy will to bear!	825

L.

THE SNOW.

It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool	830
The wrinkles of the road.

It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain,—
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.	835

It reaches to the fence,

It wraps it, rail by rail,

Till it is lost in fleeces;

It flings a crystal veil

On stump and stack and stem,—	840
The summer's empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen,—	845
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.

LI.

THE BLUE JAY.

No brigadier throughout the year	850
So civic as the jay.
A neighbor and a warrior too,
With shrill felicity

Pursuing winds that censure us
A February day,	855
The brother of the universe
Was never blown away.

The snow and he are intimate;
I 've often seen them play
When heaven looked upon us all	860
With such severity,

I felt apology were due
To an insulted sky,
Whose pompous frown was nutriment
To their temerity.	865

The pillow of this daring head

Is pungent evergreens;

His larder—terse and militant—

Unknown, refreshing things;

His character a tonic,	870
His future a dispute;
Unfair an immortality
That leaves this neighbor out.