From “Evangeline,” Introduction
THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean...
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From “Edwin the Fair”
THE TALE was this:
The wind, when first he rose and went abroad
Through the waste region, felt himself at fault,
Wanting a voice; and suddenly to earth
Descended with a wafture and a swoop,
Where, wandering volatile from kind to kind,
He wooed the several trees to give him one.
First he besought the ash; the... -
A Song to the oak, the brave old oak,
Who hath ruled in the greenwood long;
Here ’s health and renown to his broad green crown,
And his fifty arms so strong.
There ’s fear in his frown when the sun goes down,
And the fire in the west fades out;
And he showeth his might on a wild midnight,
When the storm through his branches shout... -
THE Groves were God’s first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them,—ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his... -
Is it the palm, the cocoa-palm,
On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm?
Or is it a ship in the breezeless calm?A ship whose keel is of palm beneath,
Whose ribs of palm have a palm-bark sheath,
And a rudder of palm it steereth with.Branches of palm are its spars and rails,
Fibres of palm are its woven sails,
And the rope is... -
COME, let us plant the apple-tree.
...
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade;
Wide let its hollow bed be made;
There gently lay the roots, and there
Sift the dark mould with kindly care,
And press it o’er them tenderly,
As round the sleeping infant’s feet
We softly fold the cradle-sheet;
So plant we the apple-tree. -
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth’s firmament do shine.Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars which they... -
The Wind flapped loose, the wind was still,
Shaken out dead from tree and hill:
I had walked on at the wind’s will,—
I sat now, for the wind was still.Between my knees my forehead was,—
My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!
My hair was over in the grass,
My naked ears heard the day pass.My eyes, wide open, had the run
Of... -
Lines on Being Asked, Whence Is the Flower?
IN May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook:
The purple petals fallen in the pool
Made the black waters with their beauty gay,—
Here might the red-bird come his... -
From “Thyrsis”
SO, some tempestuous morn in early June,
When the year’s primal burst of bloom is o’er,
Before the roses and the longest day—
When garden-walks and all the grassy floor
With blossoms red and white of fallen May
And chestnut-flowers are strewn—
So have I heard the cuckoo’s parting cry,
From the...