II. AMONG THE HILLS. PRELUDE. ALONG the roadside, like the flowers of gold That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod, And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers 5 Hang motionless upon their upright staves. The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind, Wing-weary with its long flight from the south, Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams, to Confesses it. The locust by the wall Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm. A single hay-cart down the dusty road Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill, 15 Huddled along the stone wall's shady side, The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still Defied the dog-star. Through the open door A drowsy smell of flowers - gray heliotrope, And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette 20 Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends To the pervading symphony of peace. No time is this for hands long over-worn 2. The Incas were the kings of the ancient Peruvians. At Yucay, their favorite residence, the gardens, according to Prescott, contained "forms of vegetable life skillfully imitated in gold and silver." See History of the Conquest of Peru, i. 130. 25 Of years that did the work of centuries Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters Make glad their nooning underneath the elms 30 I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn The leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'er Old summer pictures of the quiet hills, And yet not idly all. A farmer's son, 35 Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and feeling Become when beauty, harmony, and love Who clothes with grace all duty; still, I know 45 Too well the picture has another side, How wearily the grind of toil goes on Where love is wanting, how the eye and ear Of nature, and how hard and colorless 50 Is life without an atmosphere. I look And call to mind old homesteads, where no flower 26. The volume in which this poem stands first, and to which It gives the name, was published in the fall of 1868. 55 Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose And honeysuckle, where the house walls seemed Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves Across the curtainless windows from whose panes 60 Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness; Within, the cluttered kitchen floor, unwashed room Stifling with cellar damp, shut from the air In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless 65 Save the inevitable sampler hung Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece, A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath Impossible willows; the wide-throated hearth Bristling with faded pine-boughs half concealing 70 The piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back; And, in sad keeping with all things about them, Shrill, querulous women, sour and sullen men, Untidy, loveless, old before their time, With scarce a human interest save their own 75 Monotonous round of small economies, Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood; Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed, Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet; For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink 80 Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves; For them in vain October's holocaust Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills, And winter pork with the least possible outlay Showing as little actual comprehension 90 Of Christian charity and love and duty, As if the Sermon on the Mount had been Outdated like a last year's almanac : Rich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled fields, And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless, 95 The veriest straggler limping on his rounds, The sun and air his sole inheritance, Laughed at poverty that paid its taxes, And hugged his rags in self-complacency! Not such should be the homesteads of a land 100 Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state, With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make His hour of leisure richer than a life Of fourscore to the barons of old time, 105 Our yeoman should be equal to his home Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled, A man to match his mountains, not to creep Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain In this light way (of which I needs must own 110 With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings, "Story, God bless you! I have none to tell you!") Invite the eye to see and heart to feel The beauty and the joy within their reach, 110. The Anti-Jacobin was a periodical published in England in 1797-98, to ridicule democratic opinions, and in it Canning, who afterward became premier of England, wrote many light verses and jeux d'esprit, among them a humorous poem called the Needy Knife-Grinder, in burlesque of a poem by Southey. The knife-grinder is anxiously appealed to to tell his story of wrong and injustice, but answers as here : "Story, God bless you! I've none to tell." 115 Of nature free to all. That wait to take the Haply in years places of our own, Heard where some breezy balcony looks down On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth, 120 In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn, Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee bring 130 All the old virtues, whatsoever things Are pure and honest and of good repute, But add thereto whatever bard has sung Between the right and wrong, but give the heart Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so At Nature's table feast his ear and eye 140 With joy and wonder; let all harmonies Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon The princely guest, whether in soft attire Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil, And, lending life to the dead form of faith, 145 Give human nature reverence for the sake 134. See note to 1. 337, p. 185. |