Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/181

Rh The lights and shades, the purple stains,
 * And golden hues of bloom!

It was a happy thought to bring
 * To the dark season’s frost and rime

This painted memory of spring,
 * This dream of summer-time.

Our hearts are lighter for its sake,
 * Our fancy’s age renews its youth,

And dim-remembered fictions take
 * The guise of present truth.

A wizard of the Merrimac,—
 * So old ancestral legends say,—

Could call green leaf and blossom back
 * To frosted stem and spray.

The dry logs of the cottage wall,
 * Beneath his touch, put out their leaves;

The clay-bound swallow, at his call,
 * Played round the icy eaves.

The settler saw his oaken flail
 * Take bud, and bloom before his eyes;

From frozen pools he saw the pale,
 * Sweet summer lilies rise.

To their old homes, by man profaned,
 * Came the sad dryads, exiled long,

And through their leafy tongues complained
 * Of household use and wrong.

The beechen platter sprouted wild,
 * The pipkin wore its old-time green,

The cradle o’er the sleeping child
 * Became a leafy screen.

Haply our gentle friend hath met,
 * While wandering in her sylvan quest,

Haunting his native woodlands yet,
 * That Druid of the West;

And, while the dew on leaf and flower
 * Glistened in moonlight clear and still,

Learned the dusk wizard’s spell of power,
 * And caught his trick of skill.

But welcome, be it new or old,
 * The gift which makes the day more bright,

And paints, upon the ground of cold
 * And darkness, warmth and light!

Without is neither gold nor green;
 * Within, for birds, the birch-logs sing;

Yet, summer-like, we sit between
 * The autumn and the spring.

The one, with bridal blush of rose,
 * And sweetest breath of woodland balm,

And one whose matron lips unclose
 * In smiles of saintly calm.

Fill soft and deep, O winter snow!
 * The sweet azalea’s oaken dells,

And hide the bank where roses blow,
 * And swing the azure bells!

O’erlay the amber violet’s leaves,
 * The purple aster’s brookside home,

Guard all the flowers her pencil gives
 * A life beyond their bloom.

And she, when spring comes round again,
 * By greening slope and singing flood

Shall wander, seeking, not in vain,
 * Her darlings of the wood.

Mayflower! watched by winter stars,
 * And nursed by winter gales,

With petals of the sleeted spars,
 * And leaves of frozen sails!

What had she in those dreary hours,
 * Within her ice-rimmed bay,

In common with the wild-wood flowers,
 * The first sweet smiles of May?

Yet, “God be praised!” the Pilgrim said,
 * Who saw the blossoms peer

Above the brown leaves, dry and dead,
 * “Behold our Mayflower here!”

“God wills it: here our rest shall be,
 * Our years of wandering o’er;