LITMIR.BIZ

        The teasel and the horsemint spread

          The hillside as with sunset, sown

          With blossoms, o'er the Standing-Stone

        That ripples in its rocky bed:

          There are no treasuries that hold

          Gold richer than the marigold

        That crowns its sparkling head.

        'Tis harvest time: a mower stands

          Among the morning wheat and whets

          His scythe, and for a space forgets

        The labor of the ripening lands;

          Then bends, and through the dewy grain

          His long scythe hisses, and again

        He swings it in his hands.

        And she beholds him where he mows

          On acres whence the water sends

          Faint music of reflecting bends

        And falls that interblend with flows:

          She stands among the old bee-gums,—

          Where all the apiary hums,—

        A simple bramble-rose.

        She hears him whistling as he leans,

          And, reaping, sweeps the ripe wheat by;

          She sighs and smiles, and knows not why,

        Nor what her heart's disturbance means:

          He whets his scythe, and, resting, sees

          Her rose-like 'mid the hives of bees,

        Beneath the flowering beans.

        The peacock-purple lizard creeps

          Along the rail; and deep the drone

          Of insects makes the country lone

        With summer where the water sleeps:

          She hears him singing as he swings

          His scythe—who thinks of other things

        Than toil, and, singing, reaps.

        Noëra, when sad Fall

          Has grayed the fallow;

        Leaf-cramped the wood-brook's brawl

          In pool and shallow;

        When, by the woodside, tall

          Stands sere the mallow.

        Noëra, when gray gold

          And golden gray

        The crackling hollows fold

          By every way,

        Shall I thy face behold,

          Dear bit of May?

        When webs are cribs for dew,

          And gossamers

        Streak by you, silver-blue;

          When silence stirs

        One leaf, of rusty hue,

          Among the burrs:

        Noëra, through the wood,

          Or through the grain,

        Come, with the hoiden mood

          Of wind and rain

        Fresh in thy sunny blood,

          Sweetheart, again.

        Noëra, when the corn,

          Reaped on the fields,

        The asters' stars adorn;

          And purple shields

        Of ironweeds lie torn

          Among the wealds:

        Noëra, haply then,

          Thou being with me,

        Each ruined greenwood glen

          Will bud and be

        Spring's with the spring again,

          The spring in thee.

        Thou of the breezy tread;

          Feet of the breeze:

        Thou of the sunbeam head;

          Heart like a bee's:

        Face like a woodland-bred

          Anemone's.

        Thou to October bring

          An April part!

        Come! make the wild birds sing,

          The blossoms start!

        Noëra, with the spring

          Wild in thy heart!

        Come with our golden year:

          Come as its gold:

        With the same laughing, clear,

          Loved voice of old:

        In thy cool hair one dear

          Wild marigold.

        Under rocks whereon the rose

        Like a streak of morning glows;

        Where the azure-throated newt

        Drowses on the twisted root;

        And the brown bees, humming homeward,

        Stop to suck the honeydew;

        Fern- and leaf-hid, gleaming gloamward,

        Drips the wildwood spring I knew,

        Drips the spring my boyhood knew.

        Myrrh and music everywhere

        Haunt its cascades—like the hair

        That a Naiad tosses cool,

        Swimming strangely beautiful,

        With white fragrance for her bosom,

        And her mouth a breath of song—

        Under leaf and branch and blossom

        Flows the woodland spring along,

        Sparkling, singing flows along.

        Still the wet wan mornings touch

        Its gray rocks, perhaps; and such

        Slender stars as dusk may have

        Pierce the rose that roofs its wave;

        Still the thrush may call at noontide

        And

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