Ve It, As The Sun, The Warmth Of Affection, Dries The Moisture On Its Wings. Now That The Dawn Is Up, Is Up, And Your Vine Drips Dewy With Cup On Cup, Lean Out, Lean Out, Rare Marguerite, Lean Out Of Your Window Over The Street, Where Love Stands Waiting, Sweet, For You, Like A Rose 'Mid Roses Wet With Dew. Joy, Shaking His Chubby Sides, In A Dewdrop Of The Dawning, Laughs At Me Out Of The Wild-Rose Blossoms. From The Tears Of Cypris (Aphrodite), When She Wept Over Dead Adonis, Sprang The Purple Wind-Flower: And From The Tears Of Love Mourning Over Loss Spring The Fairest Flowers Of Poesy. Dark Woodland Ways Of Drowsy Rustlings Where, In The Road, The Clay-Red Nodules Lie; And Where The Wild Grape, Green With Clusters, Swings, Dimmer Than Rain, The Cool Noon Hours Steal By. The Thunder Boomed From Cloudy Ridge To Ridge, Trailing The Terror Of Sonorous Arms; Making The Lightning For His Wrath A Bridge, Planting His Banners On The Heights Of Storms. Who Now Hath Understood, Whose Art May Ever Reach The Velvet Blush Of The Bud, The Velvet Bloom Of The Peach? High Up She Glides, High Up, The Quartz-White Moon, Tipping The Mountains With Exultant Fire, And In Her Light Each Pine Becomes A Lyre, And Every Wind An Oread-Whispered Tune. The Hope, The Hate, The Bitterness Of Love Were In Her Eyes That Levelly Looked At Me, While Th' Rebel Blood Went Storming Up Her Cheek. Devil And Angel Was She In A Breath, Cursing And Kissing Me Whom She Wished Dead. Barbaric Burgonets, Heavy With Gems, And Armor Wrought Of Wondrous Alchemy, The Spirits Of The Sunset Don, And Sweep, Vast, Cloudy-Charioted, Along The Skies. Some Demon, Hidden In The Arras, Shakes Its Figured Folds; I Seem To See His Narrow Eyes, Two Slits Of Cat-Like Flame, Glaring Or Is It The Sunset Raying A Rent With Gold? Thou Hast No Thought For One Who Walks 'Mid Flowers, Whiling Away The Humming-Bird-Like Hours, Nay, Nay, Not Thou! Nor Think I Now Of Thee Who Sittest Where The Vine Leaves Wreathe Thy Beautiful Brow And Hair, Forgotten Now. The Fragrance Of A Dead Flower Fills This Dingle Of The Forest As The Fragrant Memory Of Some Beautiful Girl, Long Dead, Haunts Some Old Room. Wait A While And We May See Its Essence Take Form, As A Spirit Takes Form In The Twilight Of A Haunted Chamber. The Pink-Blossomed Wild Mint, Hot And Pungent As The Breath Of An Oriental Harem, And The Chicory, Odorless Blue, Paint With Patches Of Opposing Color The Sparsely Treed Hillside, Whose Thin Grass, Especially Around The Old And Blackened Stumps, Is Hot With The Sunlight And The Oily-Smelling Pennyroyal. The September Heaven Is A Vast, A Fleckless Chicory Blossom; A Deep And Cloudless Azure. The Bronze-Tinted, Amber-Emerald Blur Of Shadowy Daylight That Strikes Upon And Shimmers Through The Tall, Tufted Grass Of The Fallow, Mingled With The Gold-Green Budded Masses Of The Goldenrod, Is Like The Light That Shines Unearthly Through Some Strange, Some Wonderful Crystal, Smoky Gold And Green, Cairngorm And Chrysoberyl: A Vitreous, Lunar Light Like That, I Imagine, Which Glimmers Eerily Over The World Of Faery, The Land Of Gnomes, Where Forever On The Twilighted Hills, Swiftly And Soundlessly, Whirls And Circles The Never-Ending Dance. The Gerardia, Frailly Hung With Its Harebell-Like Blossoms, Delicately Pink, Seems To Me Too Slight A Flower For The Chill Winds Of These October Days; Too Slender A Life To Withstand The Icy Dews And Mists That Whiten And Drench These October Nights. It Reminds Me Of Some Women, Who, Slight And Delicate, Yet Are Able To Stand More Than Those Their Sisters Who Are Stouter And Seemingly Stronger. Thou Art To Me The Whole Of Heaven, Its Sun, Its Stars, Its Golden Moon; Thou Art To Me As Music Given, As Song That Holds The World In Tune. Two Unshed Tears Made Beautiful Her Eyes Lighting Their Liquid Turquoise Sorrowful; Yet Was She False, In Spite Of All Her Tears, And With Sin Pregnant As The Seeds Of Hell. How Shall I Describe The Sunset At Which I Am Now Looking? The Clouds, Broken And Black, Are Ragged Rocks Veined Here And There With Molten And Running Ore, Pooling Golden In Glittering Crevices And Edging With Ingot Flame Their Opaque Darkness. A Gerfalcon, Peregrine Falcon, And Tiercelet Were Usually Borne With Jesses Or Leather Thongs About The Legs; Sometimes With A Hood And Bell. They Were Then Jessed, Hooded, And Belled. When Feeding The Hawks Were"At Prey." The Lure Was A Bunch Of Feathers Toward Which The Bird Was Taught To Return. It Was The Custom To Slip Over The Claws Of The Young Birds A Gold Or Silver Ring Which Could Not Afterwards Be Removed. Thou Art The Wild Falcon Of My Heart. An Untamed Eyas, Unjessed, Unhooded, Rebellious. Oh, Could I But Slip The Golden Ring, Coercing, Binding, Compelling, Upon Thy Hand, Then Might I Tame Thee, Wild Falcon Of My Heart! The Bar-Lachi Is A Loadstone With Which, The Gypsies Say, One May Work Charms When One Knows How To Make Use Of It. Give A Woman A Pinch Of It, Grated, In A Glass Of Water And She Will Not Be Able To Resist You. Now Will I Make Intimates Of The Gypsies, And With Their Assistance Seek Out This Loadstone. Thou Shalt Yet Come To Love Me As No Woman Has Ever Loved Before And I I Will Ruin And Cast Thee Aside. May God Have Mercy Upon Thee, For I Will Have None. All Day I Have Wandered In The Woods Seeing But Two Birds; Only Two Birds. Surely These Beech Trees, Bountiful And Beautiful Granaries Of The Birds, With Arms So Full And So Abundantly Bestowing, Should Lure Myriads Into These Woods. Is That A Fragment Of The Western Glow? Or Only The Orange Berries Of The Bittersweet, Whose Pods Imprison The Scarlet Of Autumnal Sunsets? Oh, For The Gods Of The Greeks, The Oaks Of Dodona! For The White-Bosomed Gods Of The Greeks! The Gods Whom My Fancy Seeks 'Mid These Woods Whence Is Blown A Murmur Of Naiad Creeks; Here Where This Old Oak Speaks, To My Soul, Like A God Of The Greeks, An Oak Of Dodona! How Often In The Old Garden, Grandmother'S Garden Of Oldfashioned Flowers, Have You Come Upon A Clove-Pink, A Clump Of Heliotrope, A Verbena Or Petunia, The Pungent Perfume Of Which Excited A Hunger, As It Were, A Desire Not Only To Smell But To Taste To Test Its Quality Of Flavor! A Languid Land Of Lazy Moons And Stars I Wander In, Watching The Ripple Bars Rocking The Hyacinths And Nenuphars. The Haymakers' Sickles Flash Wet On The Leas; The Wild Honey Trickles From Tops Of The Trees, The Noon Is A Poppy, The Winds Are Its Bees. She Whom I Loved Too Well, Crowned With The Pomegranate Bell Sits Empress Now In Hell; And There My Soul Sits By Her, Kissing Her Eyes And Hair. Tell Me, Do You Love To Lie With The Dipping Boughs Above You, Where Blue Glimpses Of The Sky Greet You Like The Eyes That Love You? The Dim Dawn Broke With Drizzling Rain. The Bleached Sunflower, Weighed Heavily With The Wet, Rotting In The Autumn Garden, Held Up By A Morning-Glory Vine, Blue With Blossoms And Hung Thick With The Dangling Aiglets Of Its Seeds, Reminded Me Of Decrepit Old Age Supported By Sturdy Youth. What Gladness Of The Young, Young Earth Conceived The Lily And Rose? What Sweetness Of Her Soul'S Deep Thought Into Their Fragrance Flows? Maid Marian Rose In The Morn Betime, Looked In Her Glass And Hummed A Rhyme. I Saw Her Walk By The Blossoming Bean Busked In A Gown Of Bombazine. Look At Me Over Your Shoulder, Lass, As You Often Look In Your Looking-Glass, And Trill To Me That Merry Rhyme, That Rhyme Of Love And The Glad Springtime, With A Fol-De-Rol-De-Rey Oh! Oh, Could I Only Grieve You, And Grieve You More And More! I Who No More Believe You, You, Falser Than Before! Ah, Could I But Deceive You, You, Whom I Still Adore! Oh! Would I Were A Bee, My Love, And You A Wild-Rose Tree, My Love, I'd Sip The Sweets I See, My Love, And Be No Longer Poor. When Apple Buds Are Breaking, And Winds With Musk O'Erflow; When Wren And Thrush Are Making Sweet Song Where'Er We Go, The Kiss I'll Then Be Taking Is The Kiss That Still You Owe. You Who Would Not Have Me Now May Not Save Me; Now You Pursue Me, I Will Not Woo Thee: Love Is Grown Cold; Love Is Grown Old. Dim Gleam And Gloom And Breezy Boom Of Wild Bees In The Mustard Bloom Swoon Through The Windows Of My Room, As If The Young Spring Trailed Her Raiment Of Perfume Through The Old House, Rustling From Room To Room. Along The West A Cloud-Wrought Crimson Cloth The Curtained Sunset Draws, To Which One Star Clings, Fluttering Silver, Like A Glimmering Moth, Pale And Crepuscular. What Voice Is That Which Wanders In The Wood? Is It The Twilight Murmuring To The Hills? Or, Wrapped In Mystery Of The Solitude, The Far-Off Whippoorwills? With My Whole Soul To The Soul Of Her Whose Perfection I Know That I Know Not, Only Knowing That I Love Her More Than I Do My Own Soul, I Strive To Attain To A Knowledge Of What She Is The Unattainable, The Divinely Beautiful. What Of The Sea When The Storm Clouds Thicken? What Of The Soul When Its Loved Hopes Sicken? Look In My Eyes And Tell Me This, What Of Our Lives When Our Hearts Are Stricken, Given And Taken Our Love'S Last Kiss? Between The Meads Of Millet The Soft Wind Breathes And Blows; Between The Meads Of Millet I Kissed Her Mouth'S Warm Rose, And On Her Hand I Placed The Band, Where All My Future Glows. The Khalif Appeared Preceded By Nearly A Hundred Eunuchs With Drawn Swords, And Compassed About With A Score Of Damsels, As They Were Moons About A Sun, Holding Each A Lighted Flambeau; On Each One'S Head Glimmered A Crown Set With Rubies. Mesrour, Afif, And Wesif Went Before Him. Shemsennehar And Her Damsels Rose To Receive Him. Clapping Her Hands, Slaves With Lighted Flambeaux And Perfumes And Essences And Instruments Of Music Entered, And Gheram, The Sweetest Lutanist Of Them All, Smote Her Lute, Singing Like A Bulbul In The Vale Of Cashmere. A Table Of Juniper Inlaid With Gems And Pearls Was Set With Dishes Of Silver Full Of All Manner Of Meats. The Table Removed, They Washed Their Hands In Rose-Water, Brought By Waiting Women In Castingbottles Of Mother-Of-Pearl, From Which They Sprinkled Them, Perfuming Them Then With Aloes And Ambergris And Other Perfumes From Swinging Censers Of Filigree Silver. After Which Were Placed Before Them Dishes Of Graven Gold, Containing All Manner Of Sherbets, Fruits, And Confections; And A Slave Brought A Flagon Of Cornelian Full Of Wine Of Shir?Z. After Which They Retired To A Chamber Vaulted On Four Pillars, As It Were The Pavilion Of Paradise, Where Ten Handmaids And Ten Singing Women Awaited Them, High-Bosomed, Of An Equal Age, With Dark And Languorous Eyes, Cheeks Like Blood-Red Anemones, And Skin Like The Bloom Of Fragrant Camomile, Joined Eyebrows, And Hands Stained With Henna; And These, Fair As Houris, Played And Sang And Recited Verses. Shemsennehar, Scarved With The Luxuriance Of Her Dark Hair And Dressed In A Blue Robe And A Veil Of Silk Embroidered With Gold And Jewels, About Her Waist A Girdle Set With Various Kinds Of Precious Stones, Lay Under A Canopy Of Peacock Plumes On A Couch Strewn With Roses Of Rocknabad. Her Words Were More Enscorcelling Than Harout And Marout (Two Fallen Angels Employed To Tempt Men By Teaching Them The Art Of Magic). And The Play Of Her Glances More Misleading Than Tahhout (An Idol Of The Arabs Before Mohammed). And Hearkening Her Words And Gazing Into Her Eyes Haroun Reclined Near Her On A Mattress Of Satin Embroidered Both Sides With Gold And Quilted With Irak Silk; Under His Head A Pillow Stuffed With Ostrich Down. Eyes Were Hers Pure As Crystal Drops, And Clear As The Topaz-Colored Pools Of October Forests. Her Eyes Were Dark With The Darkness Of Hell And Sweet With The Sweetness Of Sin, And I Was A Dream Of Love, They Tell, To Her Eyes That Entered In. Was It Demosthenes Who Said: "You Write; The Scroll Remains: Think, Student, What'S To Come"? Would That More Writers Of The Present Day Would Remember This When They Set Pen To Paper, Myself, For Instance. Night Came, Treading The Darkness Into Burning Stars, And In My Heart Waking Again Old Wars. The Shadow Of The Past Lay On My Mind'S Sick Gloom As On A Waste The Shadow Of A Tomb. Here Among The Autumn Fields The Stubble, Between The Tent-Like Shocks Of Corn, Is Strewn With Pumpkins, A Golden Yellow; As If Some Army, Inconceivably Rich, Had, Before Departing, Bombarded This Particular Spot, Leaving The Ground Strewn Thick With Great Balls And Shells Of Gold. All Day The Great, Gaunt Cactus, Bristling With Thorns, Blazed Its Blood-Red Blossoms; All Night The Cereus, Trailing Over The Rocks, Orbed Its Pale And Fragrant Moons; And Day And Night, Like Lost Souls, We Wandered Weeping Among Them. On The Sunset'S Cloudy Tide Triremes Of The Storm Did Sit, All Their Hundred Ports Flung Wide With Wild Battle Lanterns Lit. Looking Into Her Eyes He Said:"The Materials Of My Life, Too, For The Past Few Years Would Make Matter For A Tragedy, A Soul'S Tragedy, Unspeakably Sad, Sadder Even Than Yours. For What Agonizes More Than The Knowledge That You Cannot Obtain That Which You Would Obtain? That Effort Avails Not? That Work Is Not Rewarded With Success? "I Often Ask Myself, 'Will Fortune Never Come With Both Hands Full, But Write Her Fair Words Still In Foulest Letters?' "However, Let Me Still Go On Dreaming; Searching For The Philosopher' S Stone Of Success: The Powder Of Projection; Elixir Vit?: Attempting Still The Transmutation Of Mental Metals, Thoughts That Seemingly Have No Value, Through Spiritual Alembics, Cucurbites And Pelicans Of Language And Expression, Like Albertus Magnus Of Old." The Buckbush Now Is Covered With Cranberry-Colored Berries. The Bind-Weed With Small Blue Conical Blossoms. From The Marshes Rise The Seal-Brown Spear-Heads Of The Cat-Tails; And The Herb-Robert Tinges With Bluish Red The Autumn Hillside. Overhead The Morning Widens, Pearly-Pink, Like Some Gigantic Mussel-Shell, Slowly Opening, Showing Between Its Luminous Valves The Sun Like A Huge Red Pearl. How Correct Is The Fire Of The Stars; The Crow Of A Cock; The Color And The Shape Of A Flower. How Accurate Nature Is. How Punctual In Timing The Appearance Of A Flower Or A Star. As Regular As The Beating Of Her Own Great Heart. Poetry Is The Rhythmical Expression Of The Relation Of The Ideal, Which Is The Beautiful, To The Actual. And Here In The April Woods What Poetry Addresses Me In Voices Of The Wind! What Does It Say, Rushing And Roaring By? Tossing And Tumbling, Until Distracted, The Heads Of The Towering Trees On The Indiana Hilltops? Within Their Fibrous Hearts The Responding Timbre Of A Mighty Music. Voices Of Jubilation, Of Acclaim, Epic, Elemental, Shouting Their Message Over The Barriers Of The World, Bidding It Prepare Itself For The Advent Of Loveliness; To Doff Its Ashen-Colored Garb Of Penitence And Don Rejoicing Vestments Of Azure And Gold. Shawms, Cymbals And Sackbuts Unite In The Voices To Produce One Voice, Loud, Imperious, Sonorous As Some Million-Stringed Instrument, To Which The Forests Yield Themselves Up, Rocking To And Fro, Like Wild Fanatics Filled With The Frenzy Of Some Mad God Whose Rites They Celebrate, Corybantic, The Sere Leaves Of Last Year Whirling And Swirling Around And Around Them Like Rent And Riven Raiment. How Much Happier Are The Little Things, The Lowly Things Of Life, How Much More Secure From The Buffetings Of Fate Than Are The Mighty, The Aspiring Things! This Wildflower, For Instance; Slight, Unassuming, And Safe, Entirely Unaffected, Fluttering Delicately And Tranquilly At The Foot Of This Huge Oak That The Same Wind, Which Merely Bowed The Bluet'S Head, A Moment Ago Crashingly Overthrew. I Heard The Trees In The Silence Of The Spring Night Whispering, Murmuring Among Themselves, Gossiping Of The Radiant Garments, Bud And Blossom And Leaf, Which They Were Soon To Don. And Then I Heard Them Quietly Laughing, As Old People Might, Telling Quaint Stories Of Their Little Ones, And Speaking Gently, Crooningly To The Tiny Wildflowers Nestling At Their Feet: Flowers Which The Singing Of The Sap In Their Old Hearts And Roots Had Awakened, Ere The Rain And Wind Had Called To Them And The Sunbeam Had Pointed Them A Place Wherein To Rise: Blossoms That Even Now Were Gazing Wonderingly Around Them, Or At The Stars Thro' Their Branches, As Listening Children Might At The Eyes Of Their Loving Parents Telling Them Legends And Tales Of Faery. Alas! How Hearts Go Groping For That Which May Not Be! Braving The Gates Where Hoping, 'T Is Written, None Shall See! In Ways Of Blind Endeavor And Darkness Of The Never The Gates Are Closed Once Open; The End Is Misery. Why Is It Thus With Me As Days Go By? Oh, Why, Oh, Why? Less Frequent Is The Smile, More Often Now The Sigh. Swift As The Poplar, With Its Lordly Height, To Clothe Itself In Green When Springtime Calls, When Forests Still Are Bare, Is Hope To Come Into Our Lives When Love Has Said"Prepare." From The Hilltop Here In Kentucky, Under The Aprilian Blue Of A Perfect Afternoon, A Great Blur Of Glimmering Amber, Gold Tinged With Auburn, Shows Me Where The Budded But Still Blossomless Black-Haw Stands Covered With Young Leaves; As Tenderly Tinted As The Festal Raiment Of Some Sylvan Of The Woods, Or Haunter Of The Valleys: Some Dryad Or Auloniad, Who Has Come Forth, Slenderly And Delicately, From Her Tree Or Bower To Greet And Meet The Young-Eyed Year. Or Is It The Rapunzel Spring Herself, Delicate And Divine, Odorous Of Fable, Who Has Let Down Her Tawny Hair, Its Magnificent Mane Of Abundant And Beautiful Gold, For Her Lover, The Wind, To Clasp, To Overwhelm Himself With; To Kiss And Climb By Into Her Enchanted Tower, There To Deliver Himself Over Forever To Her Love? Wild-Ginger, Under These Leafing Wahoos, Almost Covers The April-Wet Hillside With Its Low, Lush Leaves; Its Belled, Or Chaliced Blossom, Huddled In The Fork Of Its Succulent Stem, Divided Into Three Pointed Lobes, Is The Color Of The Nearby Wake-Robin, A Clear, Brown, Port-Wine Red. The Silvern And Golden Flowers Of The Adder'S-Tongue Star The Brier-Buried And Bushy Banks Of The Creeks. What Is More Beautiful Than A Great Bed Of These Dog'S-Tooth Violets With Their Gracefully Bending And Curving-Petaled Blossoms, Pearl And Topaz Colored, Fairly Illuminating, As With Fairy Lamps, The Sodden And Turfless Soil Of The Creek-Rivage! These Are Gems Indeed That Any One Can Have For The Stooping And Gathering. And Their Spiritual Value, If Not Their Material, Is, At Least To Me, Even Greater Than That Of Real Pearls And Topazes. Apple Blossoms And Bees; Pelting Petals; Honeyed Hummings. What Glory! What Memorable Music! What Beauty Redolent Of Immortal Memories! A Mountain Of Blooms, Large And White, Delicately Tinged With Pink, With Occasional Clusters Of Rosy, Puckered Buds, Waving In And Perfuming The Balmy Wind Of April. How This Old Tree, With Its Million Blossoms And Its Murmuring Bees, Brings Back Vividly The Memory Of My Boyhood Passed Among The Indiana Hills! Every Falling Petal, Every Bee Murmur Is Fraught With The Fragrance Of Remembered Happiness. And Now, Drowned In Its Deeps Of Blossoming And Exultant Snow, A Catbird Goes Mad With Music. Or Is It The Voice Of My Lost Dreams Singing To Me In Words That Only My Soul Can Understand? And There Where, Whispers Of Pearl, Little Silvery Sighs Of Happiness Breathed By The Pure Lips Of Spring, The Dog'S-Tooth Violets Blur Gray The Creek Banks, I Seem To See A Presence Passing, Dimly, A Bright Shadow With Windflowers In Its Hair. The Materialized Memory Of A Spring Long Gone; A Spring Of My Earliest Youth; With Cheeks And Mouth A Brier-Rose Red, Her Eyes A Pansy-Violet Azure, Singing A Song Of Home. Or There, Asway On A Carpet Of Celandine Gold And Bluebell Blue, Now With A"Wick, Wick, Wick, " Of A Flicker Fiddle; Now With A"Cheer, Cheer, Cheer, " Of A Redbird Reed, I Seem To See And Hear Her, That Long-Lost Spring, Playing An Air To Which The Chipmunks Dance The Little Ground-Squirrels Their Blood A-Beat With The Intoxication Of Springtime. She Is The Same As She Was When, With Whippoorwill Words, She Lured And Led My Boyhood Into Her Twilight Woods At Dewy Dusk; Her Forests Filled With Faery Fancies; To A Sequestered And Vine-Embowered Spot, Where The First Mayapples Unfolded Their Miniature Moons Under The Young May Moon; And Amid Whose Parasols And Blossoms She Seated Me In The Whippoorwill-Haunted Hush, And, To The Music Of The Cricket, Told Me Wonder Stories, Elfin Tales, My Heart Shall Never Forget. On A Low Fern-Based Rock, Mossy Shrine Of The Wood-God Who Has This Particular Forest Under His Protection, Before Which, Like A Candelabrum Before An Altar, Burning With Many Silken Flames Of Greenish Gold, A Young Hickory Lifted Up Its Hundred Pointed Leaf-Sheaths, And A Paw-Paw Shook Its Sacramental Bells Of Bronze, I Laid An Offering Of Wild Flowers This Last Day Of April: Mayapples, With Their Milky Moons; Trilliums, Stainless Of Star And Whiter Than Alabaster; The Belled Ivory Of The Bellwort; The Lavender And Lilac Bonnets Of The Iris; The Hooded Green And Mulberry-Purple Of The Indian-Turnip; The Disced Amber And Gold Of The Crowfoot And The Hawkweed; The Hollow Sapphire Of The Polemonium Or Jacob'S-Ladder; The Bugled Crimson Of The Columbine; The Crystal And Azure Of The Wild Dwarf Larkspur; And The Constellated Loveliness Of A Myriad Bluets, Starflowers, And Bird'S-Foot Violets. Let Us Follow This Path, That Leads Us Past Wild Crabapple Trees, Huge Bouquets Of Shell-Pink Blooms, Through Wild Strawberries Starring Their Blossoms Under Budded Blackberry Briers, To A Heron-Haunted Creek, A Ribbon Of Silver Winding Around A Woodland Where The Cuckoo, The Chat, And The Thrush Keep Up A Continual Calling; And At Whose Entrance The Haw-Tree And Dogwood, In Full Flower, Stand Like White-Stoled Worshippers Before The Entrance To A Great Green Temple, A Temple Whose Floor Is Marbled With Green And Mosaiced With Pearl And Gold And Azure; Oxalis, Ranunculus, And Houstonia; And Lamped With The Veined Feldspar Of The Wild Geranium And The Silken Sapphire Of The Spiderwort. While Lone I Stood Within The Wood I Heard The Feet Of Silence Edge And Stumble On A Rocky Ledge A Sound Of Waters Foaming Down Between Mossed Banks Of Green And Brown: And Through The Trees, That Leaned To Listen, I Caught A Momentary Glisten Of Her White Limbs All Interwound With White Confusion Of Her Gown, That Made A Dim And Glimmering Sound. What A Queer Bird Is The Whippoorwill! That Has, Or Seems To Have, No Sense Of Concealment, So Far As Its Nest Is Concerned. Perhaps This Is Because It Usually Selects The Most Unfrequented Parts Of The Forest To Brood In. To-Day I Startled One From Its Hover. Soundlessly It Flew Before Me, Clothed Like The Night In Russet And Sable, A Drowsy Flutter Of Wings, Trying To Lure Me Away From The Two Cream-White Eggs, The Customary Number, Brown-And Blue-Spotted, Lying Where I Could Not Help But See Them, Without The Sign Of A Nest, On The Dead Oak Leaves Right Before Me, Partly Protected By The Dead Branch Of A Tree. A Little Farther On, In A Different Part Of The Forest, At The Foot Of A Huge Beech, Sat A Great, Dark Brown Owl, A Hawk-Like Owl; Round-Headed And Round-Eyed; A Day Owl. Almost As Silently As The Whippoorwill It Arose At My Approach, Disappearing, Downy Of Flight, Dark And Swift, Into The Green And Gray Of The Deep Beeches, Like Some Impish Evil. 1891-1900 Where The Spring Is Sunken In The Damp Gray Rock, Mossy With Moisture, The Wild Larkspur, Petunia, Morning-Glory And Wild Potato Bloom. And There, At The End Of The Path, Like A Terra-Cotta-Colored Torch, The Pleurisy-Root Flames; The Snake-Root, With Its Evil-Smelling Flowers, Like Long White Candles, Seems To Wish To Light Me Further On; On To Where The Butternut And Water-Beech Embrace One Another Above The Stream, Like Lovers Parted By Some Petty Spite, Locking Arms Above Its Gossip, In The Foliage Sanctity Of Their Hearts Nesting A Cooing Dove. The Small Gray-Blue Heron, The Fly-Up-The-Creek, Frightened From Its Fishing, Rises Gracefully From Its Pool, Winging And Fading, Shadow-Like, A Soft And Silent Flight, Far Down The Creek. In A Swirl Of Butterflies, Mottled Maroon, Pied Yellow And Gray, And Velvety Gold And Seal, I Pass Along The Creek, Where, Startled By My Footsteps, The Water-Snake Slides Soundless, Like A Crooked Root, From The Shore; And The Silvery Minnows, As With One Impulse, Twinkle Instantly And Swiftly Out Of Sight. The Tufted Titmouse Fusses In The Buckeye Tree Near By; And The Shadows Of The Slender Willow Leaves Appear, Imaged In The Shallow Pool, To Be The Silverless Phantoms Of A Minnow-School. Here The Blossoming Horsemint And Teasel Blur With Pink The Weedy Hillside. Along The Creek Banks And Amid The Pebbles And Rocks Of Its Dry Watercourse The Blackberry-Lilies Mass Themselves, A Mottled Ruddy Red, Reflected Here And There In The Lazy-Running Water; Lazier Than The Small White Summer Clouds That Float Above, Or The Brilliant Dragon-Flies That Haunt Its Banks. A Vagabond Foot And A Vagabond Road, And The Love In Our Hearts Our Only Load. An Easy Foot In An Easy Shoe, And Who Is It Cares Where The Road Leads To? An Old Plank Gate At A Lane'S Green End, And Who Is It Cares Where The Lane May Wend? A Bowl Of Milk And A Bit Of Bread, Who Richer Fares Or Is Better Fed? A Crust, A Spring And A Blackberry, And Who Is It Sups As Well As We? A Hut By The Road And A Girl To Kiss, What Man Hath Greater Joy Than This? The Night, The Stars, And A Pillow Of Hay, Whose Bed Is Sweeter Than This, I Say? Whose Dreams Are Deeper? Whose Sleep As Pure? The Heart That'S Heavy Finds Here Its Cure. Finley Woods, July 15Th. The Cawing Of Crows Reminds Me Of The Carping Of Critics; Whether Their Voices Be Raised In Praise Or Blame It Is All The Same A Lot Of Noise That Leads To Nothing. The World Jogs Along Just As Usual In Spite Of What They Consider Their Own Importance, And In A Little While All Their Fussing Is Forgotten; The World, Like The Woods Around, Has Heard But Has It Heeded? It Will Judge For Itself Later On When Their Cawings Have Ceased. Art Is A Virgin Whose Children Are All Immaculately Conceived And Born. Along The St. John'S River Soft Maples, Ruddily Tufted, Made Bright The Sombre Banks, Showing Only Occasionally A Pine Or Palmetto Amid The Wilderness Of Cypress Trees Trailing With Moss. Cherokee Roses Too Rarely Ran A Rambling Riot Of Great White Blossoms Around The Bole Of Some Live-Oak. The Water, Of A Sullen Blackness, Had No More Current Than A Pond Or Lagoon. The Furrow Of Our Little Steamer Fell Away From The Stern In A Sort Of Yeasty, Smoky-Topaz Foam. Water-Lilies Laid Long Banks Of Blossoms Along Either Shore. An Alligator, A Squamous And Sluggish Bulk, Slowly Crossed A Lily-Paven Inlet. Lilies; More Lilies; Interminatingly At Times They Seemed To Spread Over The Entire River A Cloth Of Gold. Hemlocks, Cypresses, And Black-Gums Seemed To Welcome Us With The Waving Of Funereal Banners, Long Streamers Of Spanish Moss, As We Entered The Ocklawaha, Passing A Leaky-Looking Rowboat With An Old Negro In It, Picturesque Among The Yellow Lilies Of A Lagoon. Lilies; Lilies, Holding Up Everywhere Innumerable Fists Tight Full Of Gold. The Dogwood And Jessamine, In Full Bloom, Diversified With White And Gold The Seemingly Impenetrable Woods. Here And There On The High-Lifted, Desolate Branches Of Twisted Trees, Looking Like The Huge Nests Of Unknown Birds Of Prey, Great Clumps And Masses Of Mistletoe Were Seen. The Everglades Could Hardly Look More Forbidding Than The Forested Swamp That Stretched Out On Either Side Of Our Boat. One Would Imagine That The Ocklawaha Was Entirely Destitute Of Current, Until, Gazing Downward, Deep Into The Clear But Dark-Brown Depths, One Beheld, At Intervals, The Long Water-Grasses, Growing On Its Bottom, Streaming Green, Streaks Of Copperas Inclosed In Crystal. In Its Placid, Mirror-Like Depths The Skies And Woods Are So Exactly Reproduced That You Are Often Deceived As To Which Is The Real And Which Is The Reflection. Bittern And Heron And Egret Haunt Here; Often Winging Slowly Over The Ivied And Creepered Solitudes. And Startled By Our Approach Crane And Kingfisher Swing Along Its Surface, Beneath Which Swim Their Images Amid The Green Streaks Of Grass, That Reminds One Of The Streaming Hair Of Kelpies. Hell-Divers Or Didappers Rise, Flash Away, And The Teal, With Their Instant Wings, Skip The Water Into Ripples. At Twilight The Limpkins Begin Their Wild Wailing, Plaintive As That Of A Lost Child; And Like A Vulture, Silent And Solitary, On The Dead Limb Of A Tree The Water-Turkey Sits, Sombre Above The Uncurling, Ghostly Spider-Lilies, Hanging, Long Strips Of White, Among The Cypress-Knees. In The Darkness, Before The Coming Of The Moon, We Seemed Passing Between Immaterial Walls Of Phantom Forest, Clothed In The Fluttering Cerements Of The Dead, The Dark Wild-Trailing Moss Or Was It The Waving Of Spectral Arms, Ghostly Strouds And Mantles Of Dead Seminoles? Enormous Hands, Taloned And Crooked Of Finger, Seemed Clutching Up At Us Out Of The Unseen Waters, Or Impended, Threateningly, Above, Eager And Waiting An Opportunity To Snatch Us Away Into The Phantom Forest; Nearly Always They Resolved Themselves Into The Gaunt And Twisted Limbs Of Leaning Trees. The Moon Is Up. A Flare Of Pineknots Is Blazing In A Huge Iron Sconce At The Top Of The Pilot-House. The Deck-Hands Are Gathered Together At The Bow Of The Okeehumkee With Banjo And Guitar. The Forest Echoes Awaken To The Strains Of Negro Melodies:"In De Mornin' By De Bright Light";"Did Not Old Pharaoh Git Lost In Dat Red Sea";"Way Up De Ocklawaha";"Carve Dat Possum, " Etc., Etc., Etc. From An Almost Sleepless Night In My Narrow Cabin, Having Been Kept Awake By The Clattering And Crashing Of Branches That Raked Every Now And Then The Sides Of The Okeehumkee In Its Passage Up The Stream, I Arose To Find The Morning Massed And Streaming With Mist; The Forests Seemingly More Spectral-Looking Through The Banks And Flying Shreds Of Vapor Than They Were Last Night. Suddenly The Sun Rose Scattering With Level Crimson Lances, Wildly Glorious, The Routed And Ribboned Fog. We Had Left The Ocklawaha And Were Steaming Up Silver Spring Run. Drenched With The Mist And Dew The Moss Hung Motionless From The Trees, Smoky-Brown And Dripping. The Butterflies That Had Taken Shelter Upon Our Decks During The Night Were Too Weighed Down With The Wet To Lift Their Wings. The Water Of Silver Spring Run Is Perfectly Pellucid; To The Depth Of Some Forty Odd Feet Everything Is Plainly Visible. Garfish, Bream, Black-Bass, Pickerel, And Turtle Are Discernible Swimming Slowly Or Swiftly Away From Our Advancing Keel. At Silver Spring Itself We Gaze Down, As We Pass Over It, Upon A Mighty Ledge Of Rock, Magnified By The Refraction Of The Water Probably, Forty-Eight Feet From The Surface; It Seems To Be, With Its Great Rift; The Entrance To Some Vast Cavern That Disgorges An Underground River Which Furnishes The Water Of This Great Spring. At The Depth Of Eighty-Four Feet The Bottom Is Perfectly Visible And The Ripples Of A Rowboat, Oaring And Breaking The Surface, Are Magnified A Hundredfold On The Rocks Below, Irisated Into Wonderful Colors: Emerald Green And Ultramarine Blue, Blurring And Streaking The Bottom; The Effect Being The Same As That Of Some Glimmering Submarine Scene Presented In Pantomime On The Stage. The Clear, Round Lake, Hemmed In As Far As The Eye Can See With Forests Of Cypress, Black-Gum, Live-Oak, Pine And Palmetto, Solemn-Hung With Their Gray Moss, Is A Weird Setting For Its Mysterious Crystal. Here And There The Cypresses And Black-Gums, Swollen By The Water, Bulge Out Abruptly, The Tree-Trunk Seemingly Supported On A Black Pedestal. The Cypress-Knees, Extinguisher-Shaped (Like So Many Giant Clubs Thrust Knot Downward Into The Water), Bristled Along The Shore; And The Forest Towering Above Them, Silent And Sad, Was Like Some Strange Woodland Turned To Stone. Amid It All, As I Sat Dreaming Alone By The Shore, And The Sunset Built Up Vast Teocallis And Temples Of Copper-Colored Cloud In The West, I Felt As One Might Feel Who, Beyond The Condor-Haunted Cordilleras, Comes Suddenly Upon Some Ancient And Dead City Of Yucatan, Honduras, Or Mexico: Mitla, Uxmal, Palenque, Or Copan, Lost In Stupendous And Impenetrable Forests Of The Ce?Ba, Mimosa, And Yucca, Trailing Enormous Creepers And Huge Cacti, And Wild And Wonderful Lianas, Cataracts Of Gorgeous Crimson Flowers. The Ocklawaha And Silver Spring, Fla., Feb., 1893. I Have Talked Of The Curculio, The Codling-Moth, The-Rust Of The Oats And The Smut Of The Corn With The Farmers Until The Better Part Of The Morning Is Past. At Last I Am By M