THE OLD FARM

Dormered and verandaed, cool,

Locust-girdled, on the hill;

Stained with weather-wear, and dull-

Streak'd with lichens; every sill

Thresholding the beautiful;

I can see it standing there,

Brown above the woodland deep,

Wrapped in lights of lavender,

By the warm wind rocked asleep,

Violet shadows everywhere.

I remember how the Spring,

Liberal-lapped, bewildered its

Acred orchards, murmuring,

Kissed to blossom; budded bits

Where the wood-thrush came to sing.

Barefoot Spring, at first who trod,

Like a beggermaid, adown

The wet woodland; where the god,

With the bright sun for a crown

And the firmament for rod,

Met her; clothed her; wedded her;

Her Cophetua: when, lo!

All the hill, one breathing blur,

Burst in beauty; gleam and glow

Blent with pearl and lavender.

Seckel, blackheart, palpitant

Rained their bleaching strays; and white

Snowed the damson, bent aslant;

Rambow-tree and romanite

Seemed beneath deep drifts to pant.

And it stood there, brown and gray,

In the bee-boom and the bloom,

In the shadow and the ray,

In the passion and perfume,

Grave as age among the gay.

Wild with laughter romped the clear

Boyish voices round its walls;

Rare wild-roses were the dear

Girlish faces in its halls,

Music-haunted all the year.

Far before it meadows full

Of green pennyroyal sank;

Clover-dotted as with wool

Here and there; with now a bank

Hot of color; and the cool

Dark-blue shadows unconfined

Of the clouds rolled overhead:

Clouds, from which the summer wind

Blew with rain, and freshly shed

Dew upon the flowerkind.

Where through mint and gypsy-lily

Runs the rocky brook away,

Musical among the hilly

Solitudes,— its flashing spray

Sunlight-dashed or forest-stilly,—

Buried in deep sassafras,

Memory follows up the hill

Still some cowbell's mellow brass,

Where the ruined water-mill

Looms, half-hid in cane and grass....

Oh, the farmhouse! is it set

On the hilltop still?‘ mid musk

Of the meads? where, violet,

Deepens all the dreaming dusk,

And the locust-trees hang wet.

While the sunset, far and low,

On its westward windows dashes

Primrose or pomegranate glow;

And above, in glimmering splashes,

Lilac stars the heavens sow.

Sleeps it still among its roses,—

Oldtime roses? while the choir

Of the lonesome insects dozes:

And the white moon, drifting higher,

O'er its mossy roof reposes —

Sleeps it still among its roses?