Читать книгу Blooms of the Berry - Cawein Madison Julius - Страница 13

Once more the June with her great moon

Poured harvest o'er the golden fields;

Once more her days in hot, bright shields

She bore from morn to drooping noon.

A rhymer, sick of work and rhyme,

Disheartened by a poor success,

I sought the woods to loll the time

In one long month of quietness.

It was the time when one will thrill

For indolent fields, serener skies;

For Nature's softening subtleties

Of higher cloud and gullied rill.

When crumpled poppies strew the halls

Of all the East, where mounts the Dawn,

And in the eve the skyey lawn

Gold kingcups heap 'neath Night's gray walls.

The silver peace of distant wolds,

Of far-seen lakes a glimmering dance,

Fresh green of undulating hills,

Old woodlands silent with romance.

Intenser stars, a lazier moon,

The moonlit torrent on the peak,

And at one's side a maiden meek

And lovely as the balmy June.

The toll-gate stood beside the road,

The highway from the city's smoke;

Its long, well white-washed spear-point broke

The clean sky o'er the pike and showed

The draught-horse where his rest should be.

The locusts tall with shade on shade

The trough of water cool beneath,

From heat and toil a Sabbath made.

Beyond were pastures where the kine

Would browse, and where a young bull roared;

And here would pass a peeping hoard

Of duck and brood in waddling line.

A week flew by on wings of ease.

I walked along a rutty lane;

I stopped to list some picker's strain

Sung in a patch of raspberries.

Upon the fence's lanky rails

I leaned to stare into great eyes

Glooming beneath a bonnet white

Bowed 'neath a chin of dimpled prize.

Phœbe, the toll-man's daughter she;

I knew her by a slow, calm smile,

Whose source seemed distant many a mile,

Brimming her eyes' profundity.

Elastic as a filly's tread

Her modest step, and full and warm

The graceful contour of her form

Harmonious swelled from foot to head.

And such a head! – You'd thought that there

The languid night, in frowsy bliss,

Had curled brown rays for her deep hair

And stained them with the starlight's kiss.

A face as beautiful and bright,

As crystal fair as twilight skies,

Lit with the stars of hazel eyes,

And lashed with black of dusky night.

She stood waist-deep amid the briers;

Above in twisted lengths were rolled

The sunset's tangled whorls of gold,

Blown from the West's mist-fueled fires.

A shuddering twilight dashed with gold

Down smouldering hills the fierce day fell,

And bubbling over star on star

The night's blue cisterns 'gan to well,

With the dusk crescent of his wings

A huge crane cleaves the wealthy West,

While up the East a silver breast

Of chastity the full moon brings.

For her, I knew, where'er she trod,

Each dew-drop raised a limpid glass

To flash her beauty from the grass;

That wild flowers bloomed along the sod,

Or, whisp'ring, murmured when she smiled;

The wood-bird hushed to hark her song,

Or, all enamored, from his wild

Before her feet flew flutt'ring long.

The brook droned mystic melodies,

Eddied in laughter when she kissed

With naked feet its amethyst

Of waters stained by blooming trees.