From fence to fence a perfumed breath exhales O’er the bright pallor of the well-loved fields,-- My fields of Tantramar in summer-time; And, scorning the poor feed their pasture yields, Up from the bushy lots the cattle climb, To gaze with longing through the grey, mossed rails.
This is the voice of high midsummer’s heat. The rasping vibrant clamour soars and shrills O’er all the meadowy range of shadeless hills, As if a host of giant cicadae beat The cymbals of their wings with tireless feet, Or brazen grasshoppers with triumphing note From the long swath proclaimed the fate that smote The clover and timothy-tops and meadowsweet.
The crying knives glide on; the green swath lies. And all noon long the sun, with chemic ray, Seals up each cordial essence in its cell, That in the dusky stalls, some winter’s day, The spirit of June, here prisoned by his spell, May cheer the herds with pasture memories.
On other fields and other scenes the morn Laughs from her blue,--but not such fields are these, Where comes no cheer of summer leaves and bees, And no shade mitigates the day’s white scorn. These serious acres vast no groves adorn; But giant trunks, bleak shapes that once were trees, Tower naked, unassuaged of rain or breeze, Their stern grey isolation grimly borne.
The months roll over them, and mark no change. But when Spring stirs, or Autumn stills, the year, Perchance some phantom leafage rustles faint Through their parched dreams,--some old-time notes ring strange, When in his slender treble, far and clear, Reiterates the rain-bird his complaint.
Stumps, and harsh rocks, and prostrate trunks all charred, And gnarled roots naked to the sun and rain,-- They seem in their grim stillness to complain, And by their plaint the evening peace is jarred. These ragged acres fire and the axe have scarred, And many summers not assuaged their pain. In vain the pink and saffron light, in vain The pale dew on the hillocks stripped and marred!
But here and there the waste is touched with cheer Where spreads the fire-weed like a crimson flood And venturous plumes of golden-rod appear; And round the blackened fence the great boughs lean With comfort; and across the solitude The hermit’s holy transport peals serene.