Читать книгу Weeds by the Wall: Verses - Cawein Madison Julius - Страница 4

Over the hills, as the pewee flies,

Under the blue of the Southern skies;

Over the hills, where the red-bird wings

Like a scarlet blossom, or sits and sings:

Under the shadow of rock and tree,

Where the warm wind drones with the honey-bee;

And the tall wild-carrots around you sway

Their lace-like flowers of cloudy gray:

By the black-cohosh with its pearly plume

A nod in the woodland's odorous gloom;

By the old rail-fence, in the elder's shade,

That the myriad hosts of the weeds invade:

Where the butterfly-weed, like a coal of fire,

Blurs orange-red through bush and brier;

Where the pennyroyal and mint smell sweet,

And blackberries tangle the summer heat,

The old road leads; then crosses the creek,

Where the minnow dartles, a silvery streak;

Where the cows wade deep through the blue-eyed grass,

And the flickering dragonflies gleaming pass.

That road is easy, however long,

Which wends with beauty as toil with song;

And the road we follow shall lead us straight

Past creek and wood to a farmhouse gate.

Past hill and hollow, whence scents are blown

Of dew-wet clover that scythes have mown;

To a house that stands with porches wide

And gray low roof on the green hill-side.

Colonial, stately; 'mid shade and shine

Of the locust-tree and the Southern pine;

With its orchard acres and meadowlands

Stretched out before it like welcoming hands.

And gardens, where, in the myrrh-sweet June,

Magnolias blossom with many a moon

Of fragrance; and, in the feldspar light

Of August, roses bloom red and white.

In a woodbine arbor, a perfumed place,

A slim girl sits with a happy face;

Her bonnet by her, a sunbeam lies

On her lovely hair, in her earnest eyes.

Her eyes, as blue as the distant deeps

Of the heavens above where the high hawk sleeps;

A book beside her, wherein she read

Till she saw him coming, she heard his tread.

Come home at last; come back from the war;

In his eyes a smile, on his brow a scar;

To the South come back – who wakes from her dream

To the love and peace of a new regime.