How they come again--those rambling roads; And the weeds' wild jewels glowing there. Richer than a Paradise of flowers Was that bit of pasture growing there.
Weeds--the very names call up those faint Half-forgotten smells and cries again ... Weeds--like some old charm, I say them over, And the rolling Berkshires rise again:
_Basil, Boneset, Toadflax, Tansy, Weeds of every form and fancy; Milk-weed, Mullein, Loose-strife, Jewel-weed, Mustard, Thimble-weed, Tear-thumb (a cruel weed). Clovers in all sorts--Nonesuch, Melilot; Staring Buttercups, a bold and yellow lot. Daisies rioting about the place With Black-eyed Susan and Queen Anne's Lace...._
Names--they blossom into colored hills; Hills whose rousing beauty flows to me ... And with all its soundless, purple trumpets, Lo, the Joe-Pyeweed still blows to me!
Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide Like all created things, secrets from me, And stand a barrier to eternity. And I, how can I praise thee well and wide
From where I dwell--upon the hither side? Thou little veil for so great mystery, When shall I penetrate all things and thee, And then look back? For this I must abide,
Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled Literally between me and the world. Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring,
And from a poet's side shall read his book. O daisy mine, what will it be to look From God's side even of such a simple thing?
A soft day, thank God! A wind from the south With a honeyed mouth; A scent of drenching leaves, Briar and beech and lime, White elder-flower and thyme And the soaking grass smells sweet, Crushed by my two bare feet, While the rain drips, Drips, drips, drips from the eaves.
A soft day, thank God! The hills wear a shroud Of silver cloud; The web the spider weaves Is a glittering net; The woodland path is wet, And the soaking earth smells sweet Under my two bare feet, And the rain drips, Drips, drips, drips from the eaves.
Not Spring's Thou art, but hers, Most cool, most virginal, Winter's, with thy faint breath, thy snows Rose-tinged.
Thou lonely, dew-wet mountain road, Traversed by toiling feet each day, What rare enchantment maketh thee Appear so gay?
Thy sentinels, on either hand Rise tamarack, birch, and balsam-fir, O'er the familiar shrubs that greet The wayfarer;