Yself Again, On The Hilltop Among The Creepered Trees And Rocks. The Sunlight Strikes Athwart The Dew And Every Cedar Glitters As If Clothed In Silver-Linked Mail. The Bob-White Calls To His Mate Through The Freshness And The Dew Of The Deep August Morning; And Where The Mist Trails Its Fleecy Folds From Hilltop To Hilltop, The Wild Hawk, Soaring, Screams And Screams. The Birds Are Outdoing Each Other In Vocal Gymnastics; And Now The Sound Of The Wind In The Leagues Of Trees Is Like The Breaking Of Far Waters On A Shelly Shore. The Tops Of The Oaks Nod, Ruddy In The Sun, Like Celtic Kings Giving Audience To Wild Tribes, The Winds, Their Gold-Red Beards And Hair Quivering With Wrath. The Tree-Toads Guttural Fluting Is Like The Blowing Of Bubbles Of Cloudy Crystal Through Hollow Silver; The Lonely Sound Seems More Suitable To The Melancholy Of The Evening Than To The Mirth Of The Morning. The Day, In Spite Of Its Clouds, Promises To Be Fair. As, All Distraught, With Dark, Neglected Hair She Lifted Up Her Face To Mine I Saw The Moon-White Glory Of Her Soul, And Love Smiled Sadly At Me From Her Shadowy Eyes. Now Is The Sunset'S Presence Fragrant And Beautiful As The Presence Of Some Young Greek: His Feet Anointed With Megallian Oils, His Bosom And Arms Odorous Of The Essence Of Thyme; His Eyebrows And Hair Sweet With Marjoram; His Knees And Neck With Oil Of Wild Ivy: Robed In A Robe Of Murex-Dye, Smelling Sweeter Than The Costly Ointment Of Peron, He Walks The Twilight World, Supple And Gleaming Of Limb, Sowing The Earth With Immaterial Blossoms, Ground-Thyme, Crocus, Hyacinth, Helichryse And Amaracus. In The"Deipnosophists " Athen?Us Speaks Thus:"Formerly, To Be Popular With The Vulgar Was Reckoned A Certain Sign Of A Want Of Real Skill: On Which Account Asopodorus, The Phliasian, When Some Flute-Player Was Being Much Applauded, While He Himself Was Remaining In The Hyposcenium (A Certain Part Of The Theatre), Said, 'What Is All This? The Man Has Evidently Committed Some Great Blunder.'" How True Is This Of A Great Many Of Our Suddenly Successful Writers, Whose Works Meet With Such Overwhelming Applause From The Public, Which Is The Vulgar, And Reach Such Phenomenal Sales. I Never Hear Of A New Book That Everybody Praises And Recommends But That I Am Straightway Suspicious Of Its Literary Merit And Avoid Reading It, Feeling Sure That The Author Has Probably"Committed Some Great Blunder." I Have Read Somewhere Of The Helichryse, Which Some One, Is It Athen?Us? Says Is A Flower Like The Lotus. Also Of The Amaracus, A Purple Lily, Which Is Called By Some People The Sampsychus: I Have Never Seen The Helichryse Nor The Amaracus, But Neither, I Will Venture To Say, Could Compare In Splendid Beauty With This Trumpet-Flower, Glowing Scarlet, And This Turk'S-Cap Lily, Streaked With Crimson, Growing Here In Our Unclassic Fields. The Greeks Claimed That The Most Fragrant Roses Grew In Cyrene; On Which Account The Perfumes Said To Have Been Made There Surpassed All Others In Sweetness; This Was Said To Be True Also Of The Perfumes Made From Violets And Other Flowers Grown There Which Were Most Pure And Heavenly; And, Above All, The Fragrance Of The Crocus Which Was Said To Be Indescribably Sweet. Now I Will Venture Again To Say That No Cyrenian Rose Could Smell Sweeter Than The Brier-Rose I Have Found Blooming On Our Own Hills And In Our Own Valleys, By The Streamside And The Roadside, In May And June. And No Violet And No Crocus Of Greece Ever Attained To Such Elusive And Subtle Sublimity Of Scent As Does Our Wild Crabapple Blossom. Is Not The Poet'S Inspiration Like That Fabulous Fountain Of Elusides, Spoken Of In Old Chronicles, Whose Miraculous Waters, It Is Said, Rose To The Sound Of Music, And, The Music Ceasing, Sank Again? The Milkweeds Nod Their Rip-Van-Winkle Heads When Autumn Blows; And In The Snoring Flue The Chill Wind Sleeps. All Night It Seems To Me A Goblin Gnome, A Lob Lie-By-The-Fire, Sits Humped Upon The Hob Whining Of Cold, Or Whistling To The Flame To Keep Him Warm. These Misty Forests Of White And Black And Red And Chestnut Oak That Drop Their Acorns Around Me As I Go, And Fill The Air With Sad Fragrance Premonitory Of Their Decay, Bring To My Mind, I Know Not Why, The Assyrian Dwarf-Oak That Is Said To Secrete Manna, From Whose Branches It Is Gathered In Quantities. During Foggy Weather The Manna Is Distilled On The Rocks And Even On The Sand, As Here The Acorns, Agate-Brown And Black, Are Showered Over The Ways Mast That Is Manna To Many Things, Birds And Beasts And, Perhaps, Men. The Sunrise This Morning Was Yellow As Median Marble, The Marble Of Tabriz Which Is So Transparent, It Is Said, That It May Be Cut Thin And Used Instead Of Window Glass. Gradually The Heaven Above Grew Blue, Blue As Ph?Nician Lapis Lazuli, While Below It The Horizon Deepened Into Red, Crimson As Choaspian Agate, Fading Upwards Into Amethystine Purple And Smaragdine Green, Lordly Colors Through Which The Sun Advanced Like A Mighty Monarch, Resplendent In Burning Mail Of Gold, Pacing The Glittering Lines And Barbaric Splendors Of His Court. In The Garden Of Skulls And Serpents, By A Tower Of Gold, Stood A Woman, Fair As Fire, Wonderful To Behold. Webs Of Starry Flame She Wove There, Webs Of Moony Fire, Snares To Seize The Souls Of Mortals, Slay Them With Desire. The Pure Precision Of A Star, A Flower, The Punctuality Of Their Return And Order Of Their Coming Fill My Soul With The Astonishment Which Mortals Feel For Bible Beauties That No Man Explains. I Have Listened Long Unto The Promises, The Confidences Of The Trees; And Now, Continuous With The Trees, A Stream Expands, Expounding All The Woods' Dim Mysteries In Ripple Rhymes Sung Softly To Itself. I Saw The Spring Go By, Her Mouth A Thread Of Wild-Rose Red, Blowing A Golden Oat; And Now, A Crown Of Barley On Her Head, The Summer Comes, A Poppy At Her Throat. As La?S Obtained Ascendency Over The Cynical Spirit Of Diogenes, So Does The Moonlight, Brightly Beautiful, Overcome The Retired And Moody Darkness Of This Glade. And, Like Phryne, Whose Charms Exposed Before The Judges Saved Her From Sentence Of Death, And Whose Beauty Inspired The Sculptor Praxiteles When He Modelled The Venus Of Knidos, Also Apelles When He Painted Venus Rising From The Sea, So Does The Naked Moon Fill With Wondering Awe The Bosoms Of The Hills And Streams, Mastering And Compelling Them With Her Beauty. An Eldorado Of Vales And Peaks, That The Cloudy Ore Of The Sunset Streaks, Is The Eldorado My Fancy Seeks: Where The Gold Lies Thick That They Feign To Find, That Never In Earthly Mine Was Mined, In The Airy Caves Of The D?Monkind. A Rune Of Glimmer And A Scrawl Of Light, Printing With Gold The Black-Bound Page Of Night, The Glow-Worm Is, Making Its Blackness Bright. The Deep Blue Spike Of The Great Lobelia Glows Beside The Cardinal-Flower Along The Ways Where Summer Goes Stripping The Wayside Rose Of All Its Blooms, And Plumping Red Its Hips; Her Grasshopper Gown Of Rustling Golds And Grays Bristling With Burrs Caught From The Trefoil'S Sprays, And From The Thorny Marigold'S Tick-Like Tips. Now Do The Katydids, Leaf-Crickets And Weed-Insects Of The Dusk, That Stridulate The Long Night Through, Celebrate Their Erotidia, Or Festivals Of Love. Or Are They Elves Disguised, Insect-Like, In Long Close Coats Of Green And Gray, That, By The Light Of The Harvest-Moon, Hold Wild Revelry? Chanting, As At Their Banquets The Greeks, A Cricket-Scholium A Song Which Went The Rounds; Sung To The Lyre By The Guests, One After The Other, Each Guest Holding A Myrtle Branch Which He Passed On To Any One He Chose. No Lovelier, No Wittier Women Lived Than The Courtesans Of Greece: Witness Ne?Ra, Cottina, The Celebrated Lacod?Monian Courtesan, And The Athenian Courtesan By Name Mania, Whose Beauty Was As Great As That Of Phryne And Whose Wit And Repartee Equalled That Of Aspasia. They Were Women Appreciative Of The Best In Art And Literature. Therefore It Is No Wonder That They Were Sought Out By, And Became The Powerful Mistresses Of, The Greatest Philosophers, Poets, And Statesmen Of Greece. Watching The Fireflies To-Night, Flashing Hither And Thither, Up And Down The Darkness, Reminds Me Of Some Elfin Dance With Torches: Some Bacchic Or Pyrrhic Dance Of The Fairies: A Dance Like That Danced By The Worshippers Of Bacchus In Ancient Greece, Wherein The Dancers Carried Thyrsi And Torches, And Moved To The Most Beautiful Airs. Perhaps It Is Really And Truly The Pyrrhic Dance Of Elfland At Which I Am Looking. This, However, Is A Respectable, Not An Indecorous Dance Who Could Conceive The Fairies Engaging In Any But A Respectable Dance? No; Such Indecent Dances As The Pyrrhic Or Codax Dances Are Not For Them; This Dance Is Like That, Wild And Yet Restrained, Which The Greeks Called The Emmelia. I Wonder If The Summer Insects, Such As The Leaf-Cricket And The Green Grig And Grasshopper, With Their Stinging Music, Did Not First Suggest To Some One The Thought Of Inventing A Stringed Instrument; We Are All Acquainted With The Myth Of How The Lyre Came To Be Fashioned By Mercury Out Of The Shell Of A Tortoise, But No One, So Far As I Am Aware, Has Told Us How The Other Stringed Instruments Used By The Ancients Came To Be Invented. Perhaps It Was A Grasshopper That Suggested To The Parthians The Making Of The Sambuca, A Musical Instrument Of Four Strings; And The Cricket That Suggested The Magadis And Pectis, Both Played Without A Plectrum. Terpander, Although They Say He Invented The Barbitos To Correspond To, And Answer The Pectis In Use Among The Lydians, May Have Got His Idea From A Long-Legged Grig Or Leaf-Cricket Singing Merrily In The Summer Grass By Some Arcadian Stream. This Is The Month When The Wildsage Silvers Green In The Shade Of Elder-Brake And Trumpet-Vine; The Wild-Parsnip Goldens Its Flowering Ulms; And The Moth-Mullein Discs Its Pedicels With Blossoming Yellow Or White, Tinged Delicately With Purple Or Crimson. The Aster Does Not Always Postpone Until Late Summer Or Early Fall Its Time Of Flowering, For Weaving Its Intricate Lacework Of Blossoming Stars: I Have Found Both The Pink And White Aster Blooming In The Middle Of June In Retired And Moist Places Of Brushy Underwoods And Hollows, Lost In A Riot Of Weedy Vervain, Overwhelming Everything With Their Numberless Blue And White Terminal Tongues Of Blossoms. Aug. 4, 1894, 7.15 P.M.; Twilight. The West Is A Deep Orange Red Above Which And Within Which Silvers The Crescent Moon; Against The Sky'S Gamboge The Trees Are Outlined Greenish Black; The Wooded Valleys, Of A Dusky Damson Purple, Look Hazy Through A Thin Veil Of Blue Wood-Smoke Of Burning Brush. A Bob-White Whistles And A Vesper-Sparrow, Plaintively, Pensively, Warbles A Moment In A Heavily Foliaged Locust Tree; Its Mate Replies In A Tree Near By; And In The Orchard Another Takes Up The Song And Passes It On To One Who Responds In The Vineyard; The Dusk Seems Holier For Their Singing. The Green Leaf-Cricket, The Climbing-Cricket, Moves Its Fragile Wings Of Transparent Shell, Making A Delicate Tremolo Sound, Soothing And Dreamily Melancholy, Like A Dim Reed, Ghostly And Golden, Blown By A Weed-Hidden Fairy. The West Fades Into Ashen And Rose And Night Comes Starry And Cool And Calm. I Gazed Upon The Wasted Lips Of Want Within A City Haunt Of Vice And Sin, And Thought Of The Green, The Abundant Fields Beyond The Sordid Streets, Whither Want Could Not Win, The Sick And Fond; And, Where The White-Top Like Dim Streaks Of Steam Wavers Its Whiteness, Lay Him Down And Dream, Lapped In The Murmur Of A Meadowed Stream. As A Dead Leaf Is Lifted By No Discernible Wind, But Seemingly By Its Own Volition, In The Forests Of Spring, Stayed And Swayed And Suspended For A Moment Over Its Silent And Withered Companions, And Then Dropped Suddenly, Instantly, Precipitately Upon Them And Mingled Indistinguishably With Them: So Is The Fancy, That Yesterday Was Alive And Green And Fair, Taken Up Subconsciously, By No Perceptible Wind Of Thought, And Poised And Considered For A Moment And Then Dropped Silently Among The Dead Fancies Of Many Dead Days Of Dreaming. Clouds Suddenly Obscured The Sky, Spreading Smoke-Like Through The Calm Of Heaven As Black Soil, Loose And Loamy, Dropped From A Precipitate Hand, Discolors, Extending Outward From The Central Disturbance, A Pool Of Perfectly Clear Water, Clouding It Circularly. April Is Here, Smelling Spicily As Does The Young Gold Green Of The Gummy Velvet Sheaths That Hold The Leaves Of The Hickory Trees; Her Hair Gay With Apple Blossoms, Odorous Of Rain, She Comes, A Sunny And Showery Presence, Down The Orchard Ways. Here She Walks Under The Shadowy Cedars, Pressing With Warm Fingers The Distending And Opening Cones, Distinctly Heard, Snap On Snap, Like The Clapping Of The Great Beak Of Some Unknown And Invisible Bird. I Notice That This Year (April, 1898) The Bumble-Bees Are More Numerous Among The Apple Blossoms Than Are The Honey-Bees. Query: Do The Bumble-Bees Appear Earlier Than The Honey-Bees? The Bumble-Bee Is No Respecter Of The Virgin Bud Of The Apple Tree: Forcibly He Takes Possession Of Her; Pushing The Tender Petals Violently Aside With His Fore Feet He Rudely Thrusts His Head Into The Very Heart Of The Nectary, Sucking Up Its Inmost Sweet. A Ravisher Of Beauty And Of Innocence, He Commits Many Rapes, Thousands Of Them, Daily. You Can Smell The Wild Rose In The Leaf Even Before The Bush Is Budded: It Is A Racy, Juice-Suggestive Smell Like That Of A Ripe June-Apple. May 6Th, 1898. Snowing Hard; The Worst Snow Storm We Have Had This Year. I Cannot Help Thinking How Bland The Wind Blew Was It Only Yesterday? And How Like A Fickle Woman The Month Has Already Proven Herself: Now Warm, Now Cold; Now Inviting, Now Repelling, But Always Sweet Of Voice Even When Coldest. "The Devil Hath Not In All His Quiver'S Choice An Arrow For The Heart Like A Sweet Voice." Green In The Circle Of Contingent Trees The Water Lies Wherein The New Leaf Sees Its Twinkling Shadow. Through The Boscage Leers The Beast-Like Visage With The Satyr Smile Of What Has Followed Me This Many A Mile, Earth'S Lust, Hot-Eyed, With Horrible Mouth And Ears. I Imagine The Bible Of The Fairies To Be A Book Whose Pages Are The Gossamer Wings, Pale, Delicate, Transparent Green, Of The Climbing Leaf-Cricket; Its Binding, Of Moth Wings Elaborately Tooled And Mottled With Azure And Gray And Gold Edged With Seal-Brown Or Ruby; The Letters Of Its Text Minute As The Tracks Of Ants. High Up, In Inaccessible Reaches Of Violet And Rose, The Morning'S Reverberated Fires Dazzle The Eyes Like The Burning Points Of A Myriad Sylphide Spears. On Every Side The Roses Rise In Crimson Insolence And Pride; And Near Them, Steeped In Lordly Dyes, That To The Roses' Are Allied, Of Transitory Purple And Pearl, The Poppies' Delicate Flowers Uncurl. The Shadows Where No Light Looked Through, Ephemeral Sapphire, Lay In Pools Of Blue; And There The Spendthrift Flowers Flung Their Petaled Gold; And Many A Tongue Of Many A Wild Bird Of Their Beauty Sung. With All My Heart I Deem It No Great Folly To Be In Love With Gentle Melancholy; With Her, Who, To My Thinking, Expresses All That Is Most Sad, And Therefore Most Pensively Beautiful, In Nature. The Winds And The Waters And The Leaves, The Moon And The Stars And The Flowers Are Eloquent Of Her. Her Sad Loveliness Addresses Us In The Dewy Voice Of The Hyla, And The Crepuscular, The Tenebrious Tones Of The Leaf-Cricket: Like Wordsworth'S Poet, "She Is Retired As Noontide Dew Or Fountain In A Noonday Grove, And You Must Love Her Ere To You She Will Seem Worthy Of Your Love." The Inviolable And Unapproachable Presence Of A Spirit Seems Regarding Me From The Sunset; Clothed In Stupendous Colors It Towers, Addressing In Words Of Violet And Rose The Earth And The Heavens, Inaudible Harmonies Of Fire, Hushing The Universe To Sleep. Wordsworth Never Beheld Our Little Bluet, The Houstonia C?Rulea.I Never See It, Among The Earliest Of Our Spring Wildflowers, With Its Starry Eyes Of Watchet-Blue Looking Up At Me From The Forest Floor, Shyly As If Afraid Of Its Own Loveliness, That I Do Not Think Of Those Beautiful Lines Of His: "So Fair, So Sweet, Withal So Sensitive: Would That The Little Flowers Were Born To Live Conscious Of Half The Pleasure That They Give. That To This Mountain Daisy'S Self Were Known The Beauty Of Its Star-Shaped Shadow Thrown On The Smooth Surface Of This Naked Stone." What Bird Is That That Sings So Long? To Hear Whose Song Each Bashful Bud Opens Its Rosy Ear, Leaning It Near. While Here, Under The Blossoming Button-Tree, I Seem To See A Shape, A Presence Look Out At Me; And, Clothed In Raiment Of White And Gray, Pass On Like The Spirit Of Easter Day. Not For Things Which We Know, But For Things Which We Feel Should We Value Life Most. The Sunset Lets Its Heavy Curtains Down Of Thunder-Purple Orphreyed Deep With Gold Around The Cloudy-Builded Couch Of Day, Canopied With The Star-Wrought Blue Of Heaven. These Are The Cups Of Comus, These Tulips Pranked With Flame, The Tulip-Burning Twilight Fills With Wine Of Wondrous Name. Yea; Death Behind Her, Gazing Through Her Hair; Death In Her Lips And In Her Body Fair; Ten Hundred Deaths To Him Whose Heart Is Hers, Who Kisses Her Death, Darkness, And Despair. Dr. Johnson Says:"Women Have A Perpetual Envy Of Our Vices; They Are Less Vicious Than We, Not From Choice, But Because We Restrict Them; They Are The Slaves Of Order And Fashion; Their Virtue Is Of More Consequence To Us Than Our Own, So Far As Concerns This World." This Lumbering Cloud, Lazily Drifting Through The Literary Firmament Of The Eighteenth Century, Occasionally Shed Great Truths From Its Bounteous Bulk, Rain-Like, On The Surrounding Land, Giving New Life To Its Parsimonious And Ungrateful Growths, Swelling Every Little River That It Touched Upon, Such As Boswell, With A Portion Of Its Own Importance. The Blue Wild Hyssop, With Its Dewy Mouth Cool, Moist, And Heavenly 'Mid The Pink-Bloomed Mint Along The Shallow Creek, Shrunk With The Drouth, Seen Suddenly Thus, Seems, Swift, An Instant'S Hint Of Some Dim Being One, Whom, Still In Vain, I Follow Where Their Many Delicate Ears The Purple Beard'S-Tongue And Lobelia Lean Sidewise To Silence, Listening For The Rain Tiptoeing The Trees Through Which She Flees Again The Presence That My Soul Adores Yet Fears, The Loveliness My Eyes Have Never Seen. Here Bloomed The Black-Eyed Susan And The White Wild Carrot, With Its Resinous Odor, Beneath The Chickasaw Plum Tree Whose Crimson Fruit Strewed, Like Blood-Red Agates, Scattered By The Hand Of August, The Dry Bed Of The Creek, Or Glimpsed, Like A Dryad'S Lips, A Luscious Red, Through The Intricate Green Of The Boughs Above. There The Vervain With Its Ragged Witch-Wisps Of Weedy Blossoms Nodded At Me From The Dusty Roadside Together With The Hot Yellow Eyes Of The Wild Sunflowers And Daisies. Seated Upon A Stone I Said To Myself, "Love Is The Wizard'S Circle Which Circumscribes Life; Inside It, All The Joys Of Earth And Paradise: Outside It, And Beyond It, Death And Darkness And Hell." Drab-Colored Seed Pods Of The Autumn Hung, Like Beggar'S Tatters, On The Red-Bud Boughs: Around The Old, Old House There Was No Sound, No Song Or Sound, Save On The Rotting Shed, The Dim Old Shed, A Dove Made Plaintive Moan. In Rapt Clairvoyance Gray The Shadows Lay Around It Seeing Many Things Unseen Of Mortal Eyes, Strange Things Now Dead And Gone, Ghosts Of The Sometime Gladness Dwelling There, Spectres Of Age And Youth, And Sorrows Old, Older Than All The Oldness Sleeping There 'Mid Clemencies Of Days Forever Gone. A Poet'S Soul'S Unconscious Of Its Dreams As Is The Night Unconscious Of Its Stars, As Is The Heaven Of All Its Clouds And Winds, And Earth, Retentive Earth, Of All Its Flowers. The Bright Half Moon, A Boat Pearl-White, Floats Down The Cloud-Canals Of Night. The Ghostly Blue Of The Night Sky Seen Through The White Wrack-Remnants Of The Storm Is The Blue Of Bluet Blossoms Showing Their Dim Patches And Streaks Through The White Petals Dropped By The Blossoming Dogwoods. How Wonderfully Bright The Stars Are After Storm! It Is With Them Too As It Is With The Flowers, As If They Had Been Washed Clean. And, Like The Flowers, The Reserved Wildflowers, They Seem Pregnant With Some Message, Some Secret Which They Are Yearning To Impart, That They Would Divulge But Dare Not. When Earth Forgets One Flower That Comes With Spring, And Heaven One Star That Beautifies The Night, Shall I Forget That Song I Heard Her Sing. An Old Spanish Saying Is That"A Kiss Without A Moustache Is Like An Egg Without Salt." And What Says Boccaccio? "Lips For Kissing Forfeit No Favor; Nay, They Renew As The Moon Doth Ever." So Must The Bees And The Butterflies Think Who Are Never Weary Of Saluting The Flowers; And Love Particularly To Kiss, If I Am Not Mistaken, Those That Are Bearded Of Lip, Such As The Larkspur, The Snapdragon, The Hairy Beard'S-Tongue, Toad-Flax, And Hyssop, Iris, Foxglove And Catkin, Whose Mouths Are Elfin Horns Of Honey, Or Vats Of Fairy Wine. What Pictures On Wood, Painted By Tuscan Artists, Taken From The Shrines And Altars Of Old Churches, Predellas And Triptychs, Or Three-Folding Tablets, Shaped Quaintly In Gothic Peaks, Gleaming With Backgrounds Of Antique Gold, Could Compare In Coloring With The Illuminated Painting Of A Butterfly'S Wings? Such A Butterfly As I Beheld To-Day Cobalt And Crimson And Gold, Bronze And Purple And Black, Wing-Wide On A Corymb Of Blossoming Weed. All Night It Rained. Now In The Dawn The Purple-Berried Cedars Stand Weighed Down With Wet The Sun Strikes Through. Last Night, July The 13Th, 1897, At 8:30 O'Clock, A Phenomenon Was Presented To My Gaze Such As It Was Never My Fortune To See Before And, I Suppose, Will Never Be My Fortune To See Again. A Moon-Bow, A Lunar Rainbow, Of Gigantic Proportions, Arched Its Phantom Reflection Over The Not Distant Wood, Stretching Dimly Away To The North And South, Outlining Its Spectral Colors Against The Showering Clouds Of The West As The Moon, Broad And Bright And Full, Rose In The Unclouded East. This Morning I Find The Forest Dotted With Bulbous And Spongy Fungi; Strange Things, Fluted And Lobed, Ooze From Decaying Trunks Of Trees Or From Old Stumps And Logs, Rusted And Rotted Red; Yellow And Buttery-Looking Things On Which The Slug And Snail Feed. And Everywhere, Everywhere The Dotting Domes And Parasols And Cushions Of The Toadstools, Pink-Ribbed Or White, On Thin Or Squat Stems, Make Bright Spots Of. Color Crimson, Green, Gray, Fawn, White, And Salmon. To-Night Perhaps, If I Watch And Am Favored As Is The Slug That Slimes The Cobweb Stretched Across The Hollow Stump, Or The Firefly, That Flits Its Lamp Searchingly Hither And Thither, I, Too, May See Them Heave Their White Roofs Through The Ferns Like Goblin Huts, An Elfin City. I Love To Linger O'Er The Roseless Rose When Hips Are Ripe And Candle-Flames They Seem, Orange And Red, Lit In The Autumn'S Honor, Who Softly Goes, Her Ruby Crown Upon Her, Adown The Ways Where Vines Like Banners Stream. The Auroral Scent Of Morning Lilies Blows Mixed With Nocturnal Perfumes Of The Rose Around The Dawn Whose State Invades The Sky Trailing Wild Raiment Of Sidereal Dye, Holding Her Torch Of Spheric Fire High. Its Banks Clumped With The Hot Bronze And Yellow Of The Black-Eyed Susans And The Rocket-Like Stars Of The Towering Elecampane, Not Far From Where I Am Sitting, Beneath A Bower, As It Were, Of Berry-Clustered Bittersweet, Already Turning Orange, And Huge, Yellow-White Blossom-Plumes Of The Hercules-Club, Is A Lily-Leafed Pond, The Quivering Crystal Of Which Is Wrinkled And Circled Into Frantic Lines By The Swift, Mad Movements Of A Swarm Of Gunmetal-Colored Waterbugs, Whose Dull-Shining Backs Are Boat-Shaped. Watching Them, Curious To Learn The Reason For Their Corybantic Antics, I Hear The Sudden Cat-Like Squeak Of A Young Frog That Has Just Taken Leave Of Its Tadpole Part And Plunged Into The Water To Rejoice With Its Fellows, Or Brag To The Great Frog, With The Big, Bass Voice, Like The Twang Of A Bowstring, Of How Very Soon He Will Outsing Him By The Light Of The August Moon. This, Probably, It Was That Drove The Waterbugs Into Such Demonstrations Of Delight: Or Was It The Flashing By Of That Living Shuttle Of Checkered White And Black, That Aerial Weaver Of Weird Dances, The Dragon-Fly, Whose Erratic Revolutions Inspired Them With A Reciprocal Desire To Imitate On The Water The Lines And Curves It Wove Overhead? August 1St. Heavy, Heaven-Purple Plumes Of The Hyssop Azure The Shadowy Tangles Of The Briered, Sumached And Sassafrassed Fallows; And Where The Sunlight Dusts Down Glimmering Gold, Mottling The Cool Gloom Of The Woods, Their Massed Blossoms Seem Imprisoned Patches Of Sky, Vaguely Violet, Bringing The Heart Into The Mouth With The Suddenness Of Their Beauty, And, As The Spot Of Daylight At The Far End Of A Cavern, After Hours Of Darkness, Holding The Eye And Lifting The Soul With Hope. The Last Of The Ox-Eyed Daisies Are Now Blooming, As Clean And White Looking As Their Sisters Were That Hailed The Advent Of June, Scattered Among The Black-Eyed Susans And The Wild Coreopsis That Spread A Cloth Of Gold For The Feet Of August, Who Comes Clad In The Royal Purple Of The Iron-Weed, A Starry Crown Of The Rudbeckia, An Ariadne Coronal, Upon Her Auburn Hair; Within Whose Front The Rubied Aigret Of A Cardinal-Flower Flames; In Her Hand A Great Plume Of Goldenrod, A Torch Lighting Her Way; Her Gown, Embroidered With The Rosy Moons Of The Marsh-Mallow, Rustling Locust-Loud, Or Rasping Grasshopper-Like As She Goes, An Elecampane Blossom Glowing At Her Throat. From The Inexhaustible Fountains Of The Stars, Ancient, Unalterable, The Night Pours Out-Her Radiance As Of Old; And In Their Light I Go The Old Trodden Way Of Trees As Oft I Went When, In My Boyhoods Days, I Walked With Song And Story. The Salmon-Colored Broomsedge Seems Sunset Fire Fallen On The Autumn Fields. The Puddles Left Of Last Night'S Rain Gleam Like Mirrors Of Polished Steel. Among The Awns And Beards Of The Bristling Gray Grasses The Wind Hisses Angrily, And A Solitary Climbing Cricket Mournfully Moves Its Wings, Making A Quavering And Reedy Music. The Sun Slopes Slowly Towards His Setting, And There, In A Black Cloud, Suddenly An Eye Seems To Shape Itself, Oblong, Sinister, Narrowed To A Line Of Flame, Glaring As A Fiend Might From Behind Dark Folds Of Haunted Arras. As I Went Riding Toward The Sea, By Field And Hill And Flower And Tree, The Thickets Parted And Suddenly A Satyr'S Face Laughed Out At Me. Now Is The Ageratum, Or Mist-Flower, Seen Blooming, Blue As The Late September Heavens, Everywhere, By The Wayside, In The Woods, And Along The Banks Of Autumn Waters. It Is As If One Were Walking Amid Fallen And Scattered Strips And Streaks And Patches Of Azure Heaven. Their Blossoms Populate With Blue, Rank On Rank, Especially The Banks Of The Slowly-Sliding Streams; Crowding Each Other Into The Water In Order To Gaze Upon Their Own Reflected Loveliness, Leaning Far Over, Careless Of Drowning, Only To Get A Glimpse Of Themselves. Here And There, Scattered Among Them, Glow The Sturdy Stalks Of The Great Lobelia, Torches Of Feldspar Fire. I Walked By The Golden-Tessellated Streams Of Fall; Waters, Scattered With The Slender Leaves Of The Willow, Whose Currents Slowly Carry Down To Stirless Pools Patens Of Gold And Bronze, Arranging Them In Wonderful Mosaics. Here And There Along Their Banks, From A Wilderness Of Blossoming Goldenrod, The Reddening Sumachs Thrust Up Heavy, Brick-Red Plumes Of Seeds, Frosted And Glistening With Oil; A Gipsy Carmine, That Autumn Employs To Stain Her Cheeks With, Here Where In The Hazy Woods She Stands Leaning Upon A Stump Whose Lower Part Is Ruffed Round, Like A Brown And Wrinkled Throat, With Cream White. Fungus. Wheresoever She Steps Mushrooms And Toadstools Spring Up, And The Rotting And Sodden Roots Of Decaying Trees Don Fantastic Frills, Green And Gray And Orange Colored, And The Air Is Filled With The Agaric Odor Of Dampness And Decay. Who Is It That Can Define Poetry, The Indefinable? I Have Tried Again And Again To Define It, But All My Definitions Have Proven Unsatisfactory To Me; One Definition I Remember, That Seemed To Arrive Nearer To It Than All The Others, Is That Poetry Is The Metrical Or Rhythmical Expression Of The Emotions Occasioned By The Sight Or The Knowledge Of The Beautiful, The Melancholy, And The Noble In Nature And In Man. The Polished Berries, Oval Crimson, Of The Spicewood Bush Brighten Through The Dark Green Leaves, Like The Wreath That Crowns A Dryads Hair, In The Woodlands Of September That Lean, In Quiet Contemplation Of Themselves, Over The Sluggish Waters Of A Creek. The Furtive Crawfish Darts Sidewise-Backward, Swiftly, Claws Advanced, Over The Brown Bottom Of The Creek-Bed, Taking Refuge From My Outreached Hand Under The Oozy Edge Of A Rock, On Which Lies The Singularly Globed And Angled Shadow, Bubble-Like, Of The Waterstrider. The Great Lobelia'S Purple And The Blue Of The Mist-Flower Together With The Cardinal-Flower'S Scarlet Lend Splendid Tone To The Banks Of The Running Streams Or Weedy And Waterless Ditches Of The Wayside. Her Hair Wreathed Round With The Wild Oats' Bristling Awns September Went; And Now October Follows Her, Crowned With The Black-Gum'S Crimson Leaves Pointed Here And There With The Purple-Black Of Its Berries. Among The Brush By The Roadside The Hazels Show Their Long, Grayish White Buds; And On Leafless Branches The Ripened Nuts Gloom In Brown Clusters And Gold, Reminding One Of Elfin Heads Peeping Out Of Scolloped Ruffs. Early In October I Found The Hercules-Club Towering By The Dusty Way Or Hanging Its Heavy Head Of Elder-Like Berries Wearily Over The Waters, Dominating The Autumn Tangle Of Sumach And Green-Brier; Its Putty-Colored Stalk One Bristle Of Thorny Spikes, It Certainly Looked Every Bit Of Its Name. The Small Trees Of The Boxelder Rustled Their Maple-Like Wings, Or Keys, Stirring Uneasily With Every Gust. The Iron-Wood Trees, Covered With Hop-Like Clusters, Whispered Something To The October Wind That Kept Tirelessly Wandering Around Them. The Creepers, Crowning The Rail-Fence With Crimson, Gave The Tops Of The Cross-Rails The Appearance, Thrust Over The Intertangling Bosks And Bushes, Of Being The Feathered And Scarlet-Fluttering Heads Of Hidden Indians Watching Where, Clung O'Er With Cockle-Burrs And Thorny Seeds, Sad Autumn Dreamed Among Her Feathering Weeds. November 4Th. The Purple And White Ray Flowers Of The Wild Asters Are Transformed Into Round, Gray-Brown Witch-Heads Of Gossamer Seeds That Nod And Beckon Fantastically, Shimmering, A Silver Gauze, In The Afternoon Sunlight. The Oaks Retain Their Leaves Longer Than Any Of The Other Trees, Loath To Disrobe Themselves, And Reddening With Rage And Shame That The Month Demands It Of Them. Their Boughs And Branches Twinkle Bronze And Ruddy Gold With Every Movement Of The Wind. Stalwart They Hold The Hills, A Host, Whose Blood-Red-Banners Are Advanced Far Above The Other Trees, And Whose Bronze-Dark Armor Glitters As 'T Were For Battle. To-Day, November 10Th, I Found The Yellow Primrose Freshly Blooming On Its Tall Green Stalk, A Fairy Moon, It Seemed, Shining By Day Amid A Firmament Of Aster Stars. I Also Found, Covering, Balloon-Like, The Sere Masses Of Briers With Many Feathery Pompons, Their Centres Showing A Single Black Point, The Puffball Seed-Heads Of The Wild Clematis. Near By, The Slender Stream Was Clocked With Ice, The Frozen Road Was Seamed With Silver Ruts. 1901-1905 I Never See An Old Farmhouse With Its Quaker-Like Front And Its Old-Fashioned Kitchen Garden Full Of Flowers And Simples And Vegetables, But It Reminds Me Of The Good Gray Quaker Poet And Certain Lines Of His, Beautiful And True, Come To My Mind; Lines, That, As It Were, Epitomize His Creed: "For Still In Mutual Sufferance Lies The Secret Of True Living; Love Scarce Is Love That Never Knows The Sweetness Of Forgiving." April 10Th, 1901. What Tipplers The Bees And The Flies And Even The Ants Are! How Fond Are They Of The Saccharine In Nature! To-Day I Came Upon A Sugar Maple Which A Woodpecker Had Drilled With Several Tiny Holes, From Which, Sap-Saturated, The Sweet Moisture Was Exuding; Around These Holes And Down The Dampened Side Of The Tree Trunk The Bees, The Flies, And The Ants Swarmed, Like Drunkards Around A Free And Flowing Tap, Literally Drowning Themselves In The Brew. Around Me On Every Side The Spring-Beauty, Anemone, And Blood-Root Bloomed In Multitudes, Blurring, Innumerable, Their