And hart and hind, soft-pacing through the dark,
Slept underneath my boughs.

Down on the pasture-slopes the herdsman lay,
And for the flock his birchen trumpet blew;
There ruddy children tumbled in their play,
And lovers came to woo.

And once an army, crowned with triumph, came
Out of the hollow bosom of the gorge,
With mighty banners in the wind aflame,
Borne on a glittering surge

Of tossing spears, a flood that homeward rolled,
While cymbals timed their steps of victory,
And horn and clarion from their throats of gold
Sang with a savage glee.

I felt the mountain walls below me shake,
Vibrant with sound, and through my branches
poured

The glorious gust: my song thereto did make
Magnificent accord.

Some blind harmonic instinct pierced the rind Of that slow life which made me straight and high,

And I became a harp for every wind,

A voice for every sky;

When fierce autumnal gales began to blow,
Roaring all day in concert, hoarse and deep;
And then made silent with my weight of snow —
A spectre on the steep;

Filled with a whispering gush, like that which

flows

Through organ-stops, when sank the sun's red

disk

Beyond the city, and in blackness rose
Temple and obelisk;

Or breathing soft, as one who sighs in prayer,
Mysterious sounds of portent and of might,
What time I felt the wandering waves of air
Pulsating through the night.

And thus for centuries my rhythmic chant
Rolled down the gorge, or surged about the
hill:

Gentle, or stern, or sad, or jubilant,
At every season's will.

No longer Memory whispers whence arose
The doom that tore me from my place of pride:
Whether the storms that load the peak with snows,
And start the mountain-slide,

Let fall a fiery bolt to smite my top,
Upwrenched my roots, and o'er the precipice
Hurled me, a dangling wreck, erelong to drop
Into the wild abyss;

Or whether hands of men, with scornful strength And force from Nature's rugged armory lent, Sawed through my heart and rolled my tumbling

length

Sheer down the steep descent.

All sense departed, with the boughs I wore ;
And though I moved with mighty gales at strife,
A mast upon the seas, I sang no more,
And music was my life.

Yet still that life awakens, brings again
Its airy anthems, resonant and long,
Till Earth and Sky, transfigured, fill my brain
With rhythmic sweeps of song.

Thence am I made a poet: thence are sprung
Those shadowy motions of the soul, that reach
Beyond all grasp of Art, for which the tongue
Is ignorant of speech.

And if some wild, full-gathered harmony
Roll its unbroken music through my line,
There lives and murmurs, faintly though it be,
The Spirit of the Pine.

THE VINEYARD-SAINT.

HE, pacing down the vineyard walks,
Put back the branches, one by one,
Stripped the dry foliage from the stalks,
And gave their bunches to the sun.

On fairer hillsides, looking south,

The vines were brown with cankerous rust,
The earth was hot with summer drouth,
And all the grapes were dim with dust.

Yet here some blessed influence rained From kinder skies, the season through; On every bunch the bloom remained,

And every leaf was washed in dew.

I saw her blue eyes, clear and calm;
I saw the aureole of her hair;
I heard her chant some unknown psalm,
In triumph half, and half in prayer.

"

Hail, maiden of the vines !" I cried:
"Hail, Oread of the purple hill!
For vineyard fauns too fair a bride,
For me thy cup of welcome fill!

"Unlatch the wicket; let me in,

And, sharing, make thy toil more dear: No riper vintage holds the bin

Than that our feet shall trample here.

"Beneath thy beauty's light I glow,

As in the sun those grapes of thine : Touch thou my heart with love, and lo! The foaming must is turned to wine!"

She, pausing, stayed her careful task,
And, lifting eyes of steady ray,
Blew, as a wind the mountain's mask
Of mist, my cloudy words away.

No troubled flush o'erran her cheek;
But when her quiet lips did stir,
My heart knelt down to hear her speak,
And mine the blush I sought in her.

"O, not for me," she said, "the vow So lightly breathed, to break erelong; The vintage-garland on the brow;

The revels of the dancing throng!

"To maiden love I shut my heart, Yet none the less a stainless bride; I work alone, I dwell apart,

Because my work is sanctified.

"A virgin hand must tend the vine,
By virgin feet the vat be trod,
Whose consecrated gush of wine
Becomes the blessed blood of God!

"No sinful purple here shall stain,
Nor juice profane these grapes afford;
But reverent lips their sweetness drain
Around the Table of the Lord.

"The cup I fill, of chaster gold, Upon the lighted altar stands;

There, when the gates of heaven unfold, The priest exalts it in his hands.

"The censer yields adoring breath,
The awful anthem sinks and dies,
While God, who suffered life and death,
Renews His ancient sacrifice.

"O sacred garden of the vine!

And blessed she, ordained to press

God's chosen vintage, for the wine

Of pardon and of holiness!"