Fragments On Nature And Life
NATURE
Sweet fern, mint and vernal grass,Panax, black birch, sugar maple,Sweet and scent for Dian’s table,Elder-blow, sarsaparilla,Wild rose, lily, dry vanilla,Spices in the plants that runTo bring their first fruits to the sun.Earliest heats that follow froreNervèd leaf of hellebore,With its savory leaf for bread.Silver birch and blackFound in polygala root and rind,Sassafras, fern, benzöine,Which by aroma may compelThe frost to spare, what scents so well.
Where the fungus broad and redLifts its head,Like poisoned loaf of elfin bread,Where the aster grewIn a chapel, which the dewMade beautiful for God:O what would Nature say?She spared no speech to-day:The fungus and the bulrush spoke,Answered the pine-tree and the oak,The wizard South blew down the glen,Filled the straits and filled the wide,Each maple leaf turned up its silver side.All things shine in his smoky ray,And all we see are pictures high Many a high hillside,Which birds of the airCarry aloft, below, around,To the isles of the deep,To the snow-capped steep,
For Nature, true and like in every place,Will hint her secret in a garden patch,Or in lone corners of a doleful heath,As in the Andes watched by fleets at sea,Or the sky-piercing horns of Himmaleh And, when I would recall the scenes I dreamedOn Adirondac steeps, I knowSmall need have I of Turner or Daguerre,Assured to find the token once againIn silver lakes that unexhausted gleamAnd peaceful woods beside my cottage door.
Fragments On The Poet And The Poetic Gift
I
II
The Dervish whined to Said,”Thou didst not tarry while I prayed.Beware the fire that Eblis burned,”But Saadi coldly thus returned,”Once with manlike love and fearI gave thee for an hour my ear,I kept the sun and stars at bay,And love, for words thy tongue could say.I cannot sell my heaven againFor all that rattles in thy brain.”
III
Said Saadi, “When I stood beforeHassan the camel-driver’s door,I scorned the fame of Timour brave Timour, to Hassan, was a slave.In every glance of Hassan’s eyeI read great years of victory,And I, who cower mean and smallIn the frequent intervalWhen wisdom not with me resides,Worship Toil’s wisdom that abides.I shunned his eyes, that faithful man’s,I shunned the toiling Hassan’s glance.”
IV
V
Mask thy wisdom with delight,Toy with the bow, yet hit the white,As Jelaleddin old and gray He seemed to bask, to dream and playWithout remoter hope or fearThan still to entertain his earAnd pass the burning summer-timeIn the palm-grove with a rhyme Heedless that each cunning wordTribes and ages overheard:Those idle catches told the lawsHolding Nature to her cause.
God only knew how Saadi dined Roses he ate, and drank the wind He freelier breathed beside the pine,In cities he was low and mean The mountain waters washed him cleanAnd by the sea-waves he was strong He heard their medicinal song,Asked no physician but the wave,No palace but his sea-beat cave.
* * *
No scout can track his way,None credits him till he have shownHis diamonds to the day.
