Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/314

286 These openings six in the ancient wall

Let in the breeze in seams.

The air in spark-lit, pouring streams

From hearth to heaven leaps.

Against the black of the chimney-soot

The forkèd flames upshoot,

And the blaze a-roaring keeps.

II

Every log is a separate flute;

And every chink a singing wire

Of some unseen Æolian lyre

Tuned to the music of the fire.

The little tinkling sounds; the low,

Sweet whistlings of the bubbling wood;

The thundering bass of winds that blow

In leafless maples by the road—

All make a music in the mind;

While, book in hand, in musing mood,—

My body here, my soul in flight,—

Through the true poet's world I wind,

And there a spirit-music find

That mixes with the sounding night.

THE NIGHT PASTURE

I

a starry night of June, before the moon had come over into our valley from the high valley beyond,

Up the winding mountain-lane I wandered, and, stopping, leaned on the bars, and listened;

And I heard the little brook sliding from stone to stone; and I heard the sound of the bells as the cows moved—heavily, slowly,