Corn

To-day the woods are trembling through and throughWith shimmering forms, that flash before my view,Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.The leaves that wave against my cheek caressLike women's hands; the embracing boughs expressA subtlety of mighty tenderness;The copse-depths into little noises start,That sound anon like beatings of a heart,Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.The beech dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a song;Through that vague wafture, expirations strongThrob from young hickories breathing deep and longWith stress and urgence bold of prisoned springAnd ecstasy of burgeoning.Now, since the dew-plashed road of morn is dry,Forth venture odors of more qualityAnd heavenlier giving. Like Jove's locks awry,Long muscadinesRich-wreathe the spacious foreheads of great pines,And breathe ambrosial passion from their vines.I pray with mosses, ferns and flowers shyThat hide like gentle nuns from human eyeTo lift adoring perfumes to the sky.I hear faint bridal-sighs of brown and greenDying to silent hints of kisses keenAs far lights fringe into a pleasant sheen.I start at fragmentary whispers, blownFrom undertalks of leafy souls unknown,Vague purports sweet, of inarticulate tone.Dreaming of gods, men, nuns and brides, betweenOld companies of oaks that inward leanTo join their radiant amplitudes of greenI slowly move, with ranging looks that passUp from the matted miracles of grassInto yon veined complex of spaceWhere sky and leafage interlaceSo close, the heaven of blue is seenInwoven with a heaven of green.

I wander to the zigzag-cornered fenceWhere sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense,Contests with stolid vehemenceThe march of culture, setting limb and thornAs pikes against the army of the corn.

There, while I pause, my fieldward-faring eyesTake harvests, where the stately corn-ranks rise,Of inward dignitiesAnd large benignities and insights wise,Graces and modest majesties.Thus, without theft, I reap another's field;Thus, without tilth, I house a wondrous yield,And heap my heart with quintuple crops concealed.

Look, out of line one tall corn-captain standsAdvanced beyond the foremost of his bands,And waves his blades upon the very edgeAnd hottest thicket of the battling hedge.Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk,Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublimeThat leads the vanward of his timid timeAnd sings up cowards with commanding rhyme --Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to growBy double increment, above, below;Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee,Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalryThat moves in gentle curves of courtesy;Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense,By every godlike senseTransmuted from the four wild elements.Drawn to high plans,Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal man's,Yet ever piercest downward in the mouldAnd keepest holdUpon the reverend and steadfast earthThat gave thee birth;Yea, standest smiling in thy future grave,Serene and brave,With unremitting breathInhaling life from death,Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent,Thyself thy monument.

As poets should,Thou hast built up thy hardihoodWith universal food,Drawn in select proportion fairFrom honest mould and vagabond air;From darkness of the dreadful night,And joyful light;From antique ashes, whose departed flameIn thee has finer life and longer fame;From wounds and balms,From storms and calms,From potsherds and dry bonesAnd ruin-stones.Into thy vigorous substance thou hast wroughtWhate'er the hand of Circumstance hath brought;Yea, into cool solacing green hast spunWhite radiance hot from out the sun.So thou dost mutually leavenStrength of earth with grace of heaven;So thou dost marry new and oldInto a one of higher mould;So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold,The dark and bright,And many a heart-perplexing opposite,And so,Akin by blood to high and low,Fitly thou playest out thy poet's part,Richly expending thy much-bruised heartIn equal care to nourish lord in hallOr beast in stall:Thou took'st from all that thou mightst give to all.

O steadfast dweller on the selfsame spotWhere thou wast born, that still repinest not --Type of the home-fond heart, the happy lot! --Deeply thy mild content rebukes the landWhose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sandOf trade, for ever rise and fallWith alternation whimsical,Enduring scarce a day,Then swept awayBy swift engulfments of incalculable tidesWhereon capricious Commerce rides.Look, thou substantial spirit of content!Across this little vale, thy continent,To where, beyond the mouldering mill,Yon old deserted Georgian hillBares to the sun his piteous aged crestAnd seamy breast,By restless-hearted children left to lieUntended there beneath the heedless sky,As barbarous folk expose their old to die.Upon that generous-rounding side,With gullies scarifiedWhere keen Neglect his lash hath plied,Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at toil,And gave to coquette Cotton soul and soil.Scorning the slow reward of patient grain,He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain,Then sat him down and waited for the rain.He sailed in borrowed ships of usury --A foolish Jason on a treacherous sea,Seeking the Fleece and finding misery.Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle tranceHe lay, content that unthrift CircumstanceShould plough for him the stony field of Chance.Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might tell,He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell,And turned each field into a gambler's hell.Aye, as each year began,My farmer to the neighboring city ran;Passed with a mournful anxious faceInto the banker's inner place;Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace;Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the grass;Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass;With many an `oh' and `if' and `but alas'Parried or swallowed searching questions rude,And kissed the dust to soften Dives's mood.At last, small loans by pledges great renewed,He issues smiling from the fatal door,And buys with lavish hand his yearly storeTill his small borrowings will yield no more.Aye, as each year declined,With bitter heart and ever-brooding mindHe mourned his fate unkind.In dust, in rain, with might and main,He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain,Fretted for news that made him fret again,Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale,And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail --In hope or fear alike for ever pale.And thus from year to year, through hope and fear,With many a curse and many a secret tear,Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear,At lastHe woke to find his foolish dreaming past,And all his best-of-life the easy preyOf squandering scamps and quacks that lined his wayWith vile array,From rascal statesman down to petty knave;Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave,A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave.Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest,He fled away into the oblivious West,Unmourned, unblest.

Old hill! old hill! thou gashed and hairy LearWhom the divine Cordelia of the year,E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer --King, that no subject man nor beast may own,Discrowned, undaughtered and alone --Yet shall the great God turn thy fate,And bring thee back into thy monarch stateAnd majesty immaculate.Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn,Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlornVisions of golden treasuries of corn --Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heartThat manfully shall take thy part,And tend thee,And defend thee,With antique sinew and with modern art.