Ode to the Spirit of Earth in Autumn

FAIR Mother Earth lay on her back last night,To gaze her fill on Autumn’s sunset skies,When at a waving of the fallen lightSprang realms of rosy fruitage o’er her eyes.A lustrous heavenly orchard hung the West,Wherein the blood of Eden bloomed again:Red were the myriad cherub-mouths that pressed,Among the clusters, rich with song, full fain,But dumb, because that overmastering spellOf rapture held them dumb: then, here and there,A golden harp lost strings; a crimson shellBurnt grey; and sheaves of lustre fell to air.The illimitable eagerness of hueBronzed, and the beamy winged bloom that flew’Mid those bunched fruits and thronging figures failed.A green-edged lake of saffron touched the blue,With isles of fireless purple lying through:And Fancy on that lake to seek lost treasures sailed.

Not long the silence followed:The voice that issues from thy breast,O glorious South-west,Along the gloom-horizon holloa’d;Warning the valleys with a mellow roarThrough flapping wings; then sharp the woodland boreA shudder and a noise of hands:A thousand horns from some far valeIn ambush sounding on the gale.Forth from the cloven sky came bandsOf revel-gathering spirits; trooping down,Some rode the tree-tops; some on torn cloud-stripsBurst screaming thro’ the lighted town:And scudding seaward, some fell on big ships:Or mounting the sea-horses blewBright foam-flakes on the black reviewOf heaving hulls and burying beaks.

Still on the farthest line, with outpuffed cheeks,’Twixt dark and utter dark, the great wind drewFrom heaven that disenchanted harmonyTo join earth’s laughter in the midnight blind:Booming a distant chorus to the shrieksPreluding him: then he,His mantle streaming thunderingly behind,Across the yellow realm of stiffened Day,Shot thro’ the woodland alleys signals three;And with the pressure of a seaPlunged broad upon the vale that under lay.

Night on the rolling foliage fell:But I, who love old hymning night,And know the Dryad voices well,Discerned them as their leaves took flight,Like souls to wander after death:Great armies in imperial dyes,And mad to tread the air and rise,The savage freedom of the skiesTo taste before they rot. And here,Like frail white-bodied girls in fear,The birches swung from shrieks to sighs;The aspens, laughers at a breath,In showering spray-falls mixed their cries,Or raked a savage ocean-strandWith one incessant drowning screech.Here stood a solitary beech,That gave its gold with open hand,And all its branches, toning chill,Did seem to shut their teeth right fast,To shriek more mercilessly shrill,And match the fierceness of the blast.

But heard I a low swell that noisedOf far-off ocean, I was ’wareOf pines upon their wide roots poised,Whom never madness in the airCan draw to more than loftier stressOf mournfulness, not mournfulnessFor melancholy, but Joy’s excess,That singing on the lap of sorrow faints:And Peace, as in the hearts of saintsWho chant unto the Lord their God;Deep Peace below upon the muffled sod,The stillness of the sea’s unswaying floor,Could I be sole there not to seeThe life within the life awake;The spirit bursting from the tree,And rising from the troubled lake?Pour, let the wines of Heaven pour!The Golden Harp is struck once more,And all its music is for me!Pour, let the wines of Heaven pour!And, ho, for a night of Pagan glee!

There is a curtain o’er us.For once, good souls, we’ll not pretendTo be aught better than her who bore us,And is our only visible friend.Hark to her laughter! who laughs like this,Can she be dead, or rooted in pain?She has been slain by the narrow brain,But for us who love her she lives again.Can she die? O, take her kiss!

The crimson-footed nymph is panting up the glade,With the wine-jar at her arm-pit, and the drunken ivy-braidRound her forehead, breasts, and thighs: starts a Satyr, and theyspeed:Hear the crushing of the leaves: hear the cracking of the bough!And the whistling of the bramble, the piping of the weed!

But the bull-voiced oak is battling now:The storm has seized him half-asleep,And round him the wild woodland throngsTo hear the fury of his songs,The uproar of an outraged deep.He wakes to find a wrestling giantTrunk to trunk and limb to limb,And on his rooted force reliantHe laughs and grasps the broadened giant,And twist and roll the Anakim;And multitudes, acclaiming to the cloud,Cry which is breaking, which is bowed.

Away, for the cymbals clash aloftIn the circles of pine, on the moss-floor soft.The nymphs of the woodland are gathering there.They huddle the leaves, and trample, and toss;They swing in the branches, they roll in the moss,They blow the seed on the air.Back to back they stand and blowThe winged seed on the cradling air,A fountain of leaves over bosom and back.

The pipe of the Faun comes on their trackAnd the weltering alleys overflowWith musical shrieks and wind-wedded hair.The riotous companies melt to a pair.Bless them, mother of kindness!

A star has nodded throughThe depths of the flying blue.Time only to plant the lightOf a memory in the blindness.But time to show me the sightOf my life thro’ the curtain of night;Shining a moment, and mixedWith the onward-hurrying stream,Whose pressure is darkness to me;Behind the curtain, fixed,Beams with endless beamThat star on the changing sea.

Great Mother Nature! teach me, like thee,To kiss the season and shun regrets.And am I more than the mother who bore,Mock me not with thy harmony!Teach me to blot regrets,Great Mother! me inspireWith faith that forward setsBut feeds the living fire,Faith that never fretsFor vagueness in the form.In life, O keep me warm!For, what is human grief?And what do men desire?Teach me to feel myself the tree,And not the withered leaf.Fixed am I and await the dark to-beAnd O, green bounteous Earth!Bacchante Mother! stern to thoseWho live not in thy heart of mirth;Death shall I shrink from, loving thee?Into the breast that gives the rose,Shall I with shuddering fall?

Earth, the mother of all,Moves on her stedfast way,Gathering, flinging, sowing.Mortals, we live in her day,She in her children is growing.

She can lead us, only she,Unto God’s footstool, whither she reaches:Loved, enjoyed, her gifts must be,Reverenced the truths she teaches,Ere a man may hope that heEver can attain the gleeOf things without a destiny!

She knows not loss:She feels but her need,Who the winged seedWith the leaf doth toss.

And may not men to this attain?That the joy of motion, the rapture of being,Shall throw strong light when our season is fleeing,Nor quicken aged blood in vain,At the gates of the vault, on the verge of the plain?Life thoroughly lived is a fact in the brain,While eyes are left for seeing.Behold, in yon stripped Autumn, shivering grey,Earth knows no desolation.She smells regenerationIn the moist breath of decay.

Prophetic of the coming joy and strife,Like the wild western war-chief sinkingCalm to the end he eyes unblinking,Her voice is jubilant in ebbing life.

He for his happy hunting-fieldsForgets the droning chant, and yieldsHis numbered breaths to exultationIn the proud anticipation:Shouting the glories of his nation,Shouting the grandeur of his race,Shouting his own great deeds of daring:And when at last death grasps his face,And stiffened on the ground in peaceHe lies with all his painted terrors glaring;Hushed are the tribe to hear a threading cry:Not from the dead man;Not from the standers-by:The spirit of the red manIs welcomed by his fathers up on high.