“Source of ecstatic hopes and fears And innocent maternal vanity, Your fond exploit but shapes for tears New thoroughfares in sad humanity.
“Yet as you dream, so dreamt I When Life stretched forth its morning ray to me; Other views for by and by!” . . . Such strange things did mother say to me.
THE PINE PLANTERS (MARTY SOUTH’S REVERIE)
WE work here together In blast and breeze; He fills the earth in, I hold the trees.
He does not notice That what I do Keeps me from moving And chills me through.
He has seen one fairer I feel by his eye, Which skims me as though I were not by.
And since she passed here He scarce has known But that the woodland Holds him alone.
I have worked here with him Since morning shine, He busy with his thoughts And I with mine.
I have helped him so many, So many days, But never win any Small word of praise!
Shall I not sigh to him That I work on Glad to be nigh to him Though hope is gone?
Nay, though he never Knew love like mine, I’ll bear it ever And make no sign!
From the bundle at hand here I take each tree, And set it to stand, here Always to be; When, in a second, As if from fear Of Life unreckoned Beginning here, It starts a sighing Through day and night, Though while there lying ’Twas voiceless quite.
It will sigh in the morning, Will sigh at noon, At the winter’s warning, In wafts of June; Grieving that never Kind Fate decreed It should for ever Remain a seed, And shun the welter Of things without, Unneeding shelter From storm and drought.
Thus, all unknowing For whom or what We set it growing In this bleak spot, It still will grieve here Throughout its time, Unable to leave here, Or change its clime; Or tell the story Of us to-day When, halt and hoary, We pass away.
I PLODDED to Fairmile Hill-top, where A maiden one fain would guard From every hazard and every care Advanced on the roadside sward.
I wondered how succeeding suns Would shape her wayfarings, And wished some Power might take such ones Under Its warding wings.
The busy breeze came up the hill And smartened her cheek to red, And frizzled her hair to a haze. With a will “Good-morning, my Dear!” I said.
She glanced from me to the far-off gray, And, with proud severity, “Good-morning to you—though I may say I am not _your_ Dear,” quoth she: