Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 21.djvu/10

2 Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more

Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters

Make glad their nooning underneath the elms

With tale and riddle and old snatch of song,

I lay aside grave themes, and idly play

With fancies borrowed from remembered hills

That beckon to me from the cold blue North.

And yet not idly all. A farmer's son,

Proud of field lore and harvest-craft, and feeling

All their fine possibilities, while yet

Knowing too well the hard necessities

Of labor and privation, and the bare

And colorless realities of life

Without an atmosphere, I fain would see

The rugged outlines touched and glorified

With mellowing haze and golden-tinted mist.

Our yeoman should be equal to his home

Set in these fair green valleys, purple-walled,—

A man to match his mountains, not a drudge

Dull as the clod he turns. I fain would teach

In this light way the blind eyes to discern,

And the cold hearts to feel, in common things,

Beatitudes of beauty; and, meanwhile,

Pay somewhat of the mighty debt I owe

To Nature for her ministry of love

And life-long benediction. With the rocks

And woods and mountain valleys which have been

Solace in suffering, and exceeding joy

In life's best moments, I would leave some sign,

When I am but a name and memory,

That I have loved them. Haply, in the years

That wait to take the places of our own,

Whispered upon some breezy balcony

Fronting the hills, or where the lake in the moon

Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth,

In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet

Of Boaz, even this little lay of mine

May lift some burden from a heavy heart,

Or make a light one lighter for its sake.

We held our sideling way above

The river's whitening shallows,

By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns

Swept through and through by swallows,—

By maple orchards, belts of pine

And larches climbing darkly

The mountain slopes, and, over all,

The great peaks rising starkly.

You should have seen that long hill-range

With gaps of brightness riven,—