There,--when harvest heights impend Over shores of rippling summer, And to greet the fair new-comer,-- June,--the wildrose thickets bend In a million blossoms dressed,-- All the land is one with rest.
On some rock, where gaunt the oak Reddens and the sombre cedar Darkens, like a sachem leader, I have lain and watched the smoke Of the steamboat, far-away, Trailed along the dying day.
There,--when margin waves reflect Autumn colors, gay and sober, And the Indian-girl, October, Wampum-like in berries decked, Leans above the leaf-strewn streams,-- All the land is one with dreams.
Through the bottoms where,--out-tossed By the wind’s wild hands,--ashiver Bend the willows o’er the river, I have walked in sleet and frost, While beneath the cold round moon, Frozen, gleamed the long lagoon.
There,--when leafless woods uplift Spectral arms the storm-blasts splinter, And the hoary trapper, Winter, Builds his camp of ice and drift, With his snow-pelts furred and shod,-- All the land is one with God.
When blood-root blooms and trillium flowers Unclasp their stars to sun and rain, My heart strikes hands with winds and showers And wanders in the woods again.
O urging impulse, born of spring! That makes glad April of my soul, No bird, however wild of wing, Is more impatient of control.
Impetuous of pulse it beats Within my blood and bears me hence; Above the housetops and the streets I hear its happy eloquence.
It tells me all that I would know, Of birds and buds, of blooms and bees; I seem to hear the blossoms blow, And leaves unfolding on the trees.
I seem to hear the bluebells ring Faint purple peals of perfume; and The honey-throated poppies fling Their golden laughter o’er the land.
It calls to me; it sings to me; I hear its far voice night and day; I can not choose but go when tree And flower clamor, “Come away!”
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 honeybee; And the tall wild-carrots around you sway Their lace-like flowers of cloudy gray:
By the black-cohosh and its pearl-white 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: