Poems (Dorr)/The Fallow Field
Was his soul's best blossoming,Knew the thought he could not holdShrined his spirit's purest gold.Look!"Where rose the city's gateIn majestic, sculptured state,From a far-off battle-plain,Through the javelins' silver rainBearing buckler, lance, and shield,And their standard's glittering field,Eager, yet with shout nor din,Came a great host trooping in.Burned their eyes with martial fire,And the glow of proud desire,Such as gods and hero's filledWhen their mighty souls were thrilledBy old Homer's golden lyre!
Under dim cathedral archesPacing sad, pacing slow,As to beat of funeral marchesOr to music's rhythmic flow—With their solemn brows uplifted,And their hands upon their breasts,Where the deepest shadows drifted,One by one pale phantoms pressed.Lost in dreams of heights supernal,Mystic dreams of Paradise,Or of woful depths infernal, Slow they passed before mine eyes.Oh, the vision's pallid splendor!Oh, the grandeur of their mien—Kin, by birthright proud and tender,To the matchless Florentine! In stately solitude,Whereon might none intrude—Majestic, grand and calm,And bearing each the palm;Dwelling, serene and fair,In most enchanted air,Where softest music creptO'er harp-strings deftly swept,And organ-thunders rolledLike storm-winds through the wold,They stood in strength sublimeBeyond the bounds of time—They who had been a partOf Milton's mighty heart!
And where, mysterious ones,Are Shakespeare's princely sons,Bearing in lavish handsThe spoil of many lands?From castles lifted farAgainst the evening star,Where royal banners floatO'er rampart, tower, and moat,And the white moonlight sleepsUpon the Donjon keeps;From fairy-haunted dellsAmong the lonely fells;From banks where wild thyme growsAnd the blue violet blows;From caverns grim, and cavesLashed by the deep sea-waves;From darkling forest shade,From busy haunts of trade,From market, court, and camp,Where folly rings her bells, Or sorrow tolls her knells,Or where in cloister cellsThe scholar trims his lamp—Wearing the sword, the gown,The motley of the clown,The beggar's rags, the doleOf the remorseful soul,The wedding-robe, the ring,The shroud's white blossoming,O myriad-minded man,Thus thine immortal clanPassed down the endless waysOf the eternal days!
Then said I to my spirit:"These are they who wore the crown3Well the king's sons may inheritAll his glory and renown.Where are they—the songs unsungBy the humbler bards whose lyresThrough earth's lowly vales have rung,Like the notes of woodland choirs?They whose silver-sandalled feetNever climbed the clouds to meet?"
Where?—The air grew full of laughterLow and sweet, and following afterCame the softest breath of singingAs if lily bells were ringing;And from all the happy closes,Crowned with daisies, crowned with roses,Bearing woodland ferns for palm-boughs in their hands,From the dim secluded places,Through the wide enchanted spaces, With their song-illumined facesSwept the shadowy minstrel bands!
Songs unsung, the high and lowly,Songs, the holy and unholy,In that purest air grown whollyClean from every spot and stain!And I knew as endless agesStill were turning life's full pages,Each should find his own again—Find the song he could not sing,As his soul's best blossoming!
QUESTIONING A ROSE
It was fair, it was sweet,And it blossomed at my feet. "O thou peerless rose!" I said, "Art thou heir to roses dead— Roses that their petals shedIn the winds of long ago?Who bequeathed to thee the glow Of thy perfect, radiant heart?What proud queen of fire and snow Lived to make thee what thou art?
"Who gave thee thy nameless graceAnd the beauty of thy face, Touched thy lips with fragrant wine, Pledging thee in cups divine?On some long-forgotten day,When earth kept glad holiday, One bright rose was born, I think, Dewy, sweet, and soft and pink—Born, more blest than others are,To be thy progenitor!
"Oh, the roses that have died. In the unremembered Junes!Oh, the roses that have sighed Unto long-forgotten runes!Dost thou know their secrets dear? Have they whispered in thine ear Mysteries of the rain and dew, And the sunshine that they knew?Have they told thee how the breezeWooed them, and the amorous bees?
"Silent, art thou? Thy repose Mocks me, yet I fain would knowArt thou kin to one rare rose Of a summer long ago?It was sweet, it was fair;Someone twined it in my hair, When my young cheek, blushing red, Shamed the roses, someone said.Dust and ashes though it be,Still its soul lives on in thee."
THE FALLOW FIELD
The sun comes up and the sun goes down;The night mist shroudeth the sleeping town;But if it be dark or if it be day,If the tempests beat or the breezes play,Still here on this upland slope I lie,Looking up to the changeful sky.
Naught am I but a fallow field;Never a crop my acres yield.Over the wall at my right handStately and green the corn-blades stand,And I hear at my left the flying feetOf the winds that rustle the bending wheat.
Often while yet the morn is redI list for our master's eager tread.He smiles at the young corn's towering height,He knows the wheat is a goodly sight,But he glances not at the fallow fieldWhose idle acres no wealth may yield.
Sometimes the shout of the harvestersThe sleeping pulse of my being stirs,And as one in a dream I seem to feelThe sweep and the rush of the swinging steel,Or I catch the sound of the gay refrainAs they heap their wains with the golden grain,
Yet, O my neighbors, be not too proud,Though on every tongue your praise is loud.Our mother Nature is kind to me,And I am beloved by bird and bee,And never a child that passes byBut turns upon me a grateful eye.
Over my head the skies are blue;I have my share of the rain and dew;I bask like you in the summer sunWhen the long bright days pass, one by one,And calm as yours is my sweet reposeWrapped in the warmth of the winter Snows.
For little our loving mother caresWhich the corn or the daisy bears,Which is rich with the ripening wheat,Which with the violet's breath is sweet,Which is red with the clover bloom,Or which for the wild sweet-fern makes room.
Useless under the summer skyYear after year men say I lie.Little they know what strength of mineI give to the trailing blackberry vine;Little they know how the wild grape grows,Or how my life-blood flushes the rose.
Little they think of the cups I fillFor the mosses creeping under the hill;Little they think of the feast I spreadFor the wild wee creatures that must be fed:Squirrel and butterfly, bird and bee,And the creeping things that no eye may see.
Lord of the harvest, thou dost knowHow the summers and winters go.Never a ship sails east or westLaden with treasures at my behest,Yet my being thrills to the voice of GodWhen I give my gold to the golden-rod.