Song The Tenth

‘Tis late and hoar. She’s at her door:
Oh for her spouse to come in sight!
No form appears; she harks, but hears
No foot abroad in all the night.
Start! her crowding soul is full
Of Murder-Wood and Dead-Man’s-Pool,—
Haunts to waylay him: Shuddering in,
To cheat her fear, she hastes to spin.
Sit she cannot: Heart-opprest,
(So thick the ghostly fancies come),
She’ll wake her little ones and hear
Their voices in the night so drear;
Yet pauses, loth to break their rest.
God send the husband and the father home!

Young day, so clear and bland!
Earth in her dew, how fresh and fair!
Far ocean lies
To yonder skies,
A floor of fine-compacted air.
Forth we give thee,
Back receive thee,
Gladness of the sea and land.

Soft smiling through the showers,
He makes the eyes of flowers.
Milk of his blessing, Summer-sweet,
Swells out God’s covenant in the heart of wheat.
Deep, he makes the silver vein;

Deep, he makes the stone of light,—
A heritage from reign to reign,
Of purest sparkle on the functional brow.
Life hangs upon his sight.
O Sun that Adam saw, I see thee now!

Wo for the sallow eves!
The troubled woods roar to the master winds:
Drift of the leaves, it blinds
The wildered day forlorn,—drift of the whirling leaves.