by John Greenleaf Whittier  (1807 – 1892)

“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine Light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood fire: and as the celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.”

        COR. AGRIPPA,
           Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v.

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow; and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”

                                       EMERSON

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, —
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
The **** his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingàd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below, —
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!”
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp’s supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse ****** his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The **** his ***** greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt’s Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicëd elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back, —
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art

The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.”

The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where’er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed;
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow.
O Time and Change! — with hair as gray
As was my sire’s that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now, —
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o’er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneath their orchard trees,
We hear, like them, the hum of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o’er,
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-book lore
“The Chief of Gambia’s golden shore.”
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery’s shaping hand,
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred
Dame Mercy Warren’s rousing word:
“Does not the voice of reason cry,
Claim the first right which Nature gave,
From the red scourge of ******* to fly,
Nor deign to live a burdened slave!”
Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog’s wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper’s hut and Indian camp;
Lived o’er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. François’ hemlock-trees;
Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away.
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury’s level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;
Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
The low green prairies of the sea.
We shared the fishing off Boar’s Head,
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;
The chowder on the sand-beach made,
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,
With spoons of clam-shell from the ***.
We heard the tales of witchcraft old,
And dream and sign and marvel told
To sleepy listeners as they lay
Stretched idly on the salted hay,
Adrift along the winding shores,
When favoring breezes deigned to blow
The square sail of the gundelow
And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Concheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling, in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways,)
The story of her early days, —
She made us welcome to her home;
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
At the gray wizard’s conjuring-book,
The fame whereof went far and wide
Through all the simple country side;
We heard the hawks at twilight play,
The boat-horn on Piscataqua,
The loon’s weird laughter far away;
We fished her little trout-brook, knew
What flowers in wood and meadow grew,
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay,
The ducks’ black squadron anchored lay,
And heard the wild-geese calling loud
Beneath the gray November cloud.
Then, haply, with a look more grave,
And soberer tone, some tale she gave
From painful Sewel’s ancient tome,
Beloved in every Quaker home,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley’s Journal, old and quaint, —
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! —
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,
And water-**** and bread-cask failed,
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath
Of casting lots for life or death,

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddenly, as if to save
The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,
A school of porpoise flashed in view.
“Take, eat,” he said, “and be content;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham.”
Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature’s unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine,
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries;
Himself to Nature’s heart so near
v That all her voices in his ear
Of beast or bird had meanings clear,
Like Apollonius of old,
Who knew the tales the sparrows told,
Or Hermes, who interpreted
What the sage cranes of Nilus said;
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds
Whose girdle was the parish bounds,
Whereof his fondly partial pride
The common features magnified,
As Surrey hills to mountains grew
In White of Selborne’s loving view, —
He told how teal and loon he shot,
And how the eagle’s eggs he got,
The feats on pond and river done,
The prodigies of rod and gun;
Till, warming with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold,
The bitter wind unheeded blew,
From ripening corn the pigeons flew,
The partridge drummed i’ the wood, the mink
Went fishing down the river-brink.
In fields with bean or clover gay,
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,
Peered from the doorway of his cell;
The muskrat plied the mason’s trade,
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;
And from the shagbark overhead
The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear, —
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love’s unselfishness,
And welcome wheresoe’er she went,
A calm and gracious element,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income
And womanly atmosphere of home, —
Called up her girlhood memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And homespun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.
For well she kept her genial mood
And simple faith of maidenhood;
Before her still a cloud-land lay,
The mirage loomed across her way;
The morning dew, that dries so soon
With others, glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The ****** fancies of the heart.
Be shame to him of woman born
Who hath for such but thought of scorn.
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.

O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a poor one’s blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent
Whose curtain never outward swings!

As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart
Against the household ***** lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat
Our youngest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,
Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes behold me still?
With me one little year ago: —
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south-winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak
The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where’er I went
With dark eyes full of love’s content.
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June’s unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What chance can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust with me?
And while in life’s late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle’s hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth’s college halls.
Born the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way;
Could doff at ease his scholar’s gown
To peddle wares from town to town;
Or through the long vacation’s reach
In lonely lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater’s keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-man’s-buff,
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame’s winding-yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed at best the odds
‘Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took
The guise of any grist-mill brook,
And dread Olympus at his will
Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be,
Who, following in War’s ****** trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth,
Made ****** pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor’s free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

Another guest that winter night
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold,

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarfed beside
Her unbent will’s majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the best,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The ***** and the devotee,
Revealing with each freak or feint
The temper of Petruchio’s Kate,
The raptures of Siena’s saint.
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist
Had facile power to form a fist;
The warm, dark languish of her eyes
Was never safe from wrath’s surprise.
Brows saintly calm and lips devout
Knew every change of scowl and pout;
And the sweet voice had notes more high
And shrill for social battle-cry.

Since then what old cathedral town
Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown,
What convent-gate has held its lock
Against the challenge of her knock!
Through Smyrna’s plague-hushed thoroughfares,
Up sea-set Malta’s rocky stairs,
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem
Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,
Or startling on her desert throne
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own,
Her tireless feet have held their way;
And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray,
She watches under Eastern skies,
With hope each day renewed and fresh,
The Lord’s quick coming in the flesh,
Whereof she dreams and prophesies!
Where’er her troubled path may be,
The Lord’s sweet pity with her go!
The outward wayward life we see,
The hidden springs we may not know.
Nor is it given us to discern
What threads the fatal sisters spun,
Through what ancestral years has run
The sorrow with the woman born,
What forged her cruel chain of moods,
What set her feet in solitudes,
And held the love within her mute,
What mingled madness in the blood,
A life-long discord and annoy,
Water of tears with oil of joy,
And hid within the folded bud
Perversities of flower and fruit.
It is not ours to separate
The tangled skein of will and fate,
To show what metes and bounds should stand
Upon the soul’s debatable land,
And between choice and Providence
Divide the circle of events;
But He who knows our frame is just,
Merciful and compassionate,
And full of sweet assurances
And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust!

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull’s-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle broke:
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,
And laid it tenderly away;
Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brands with ashes over.
And while, with care, our mother laid
The work aside, her steps she stayed
One moment, seeking to express
Her grateful sense of happiness
For food and shelter, warmth and health,
And love’s contentment more than wealth,
With simple wishes (not the weak,
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,
But such as warm the generous heart,
O’er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)
That none might lack, that bitter night,
For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes
From lip to lip; the younger folks
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade
O’er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,
At every house a new recruit,
Where, drawn by Nature’s subtlest law,
Haply the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-ball’s compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The charm with Eden never lost.
We heard once more the sleigh-bells’ sound;
And, following where the teamsters led,
The wise old Doctor went his round,
Just pausing at our door to say,
In the brief autocratic way
Of one who, prompt at Duty’s call,
Was free to urge her claim on all,
That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother’s aid would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed,
What mattered in the sufferer’s sight
The Quaker matron’s inward light,
The Doctor’s mail of Calvin’s creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on: a week had passed
Since the great world was heard from last.
The Almanac we studied o’er,
Read and reread our little store
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry, (or good or bad,
A single book was all we had,)
Where Ellwood’s meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.
Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread
In panoramic length unrolled
We saw the marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
A   nd daft McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica’s everglades.
And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypsilanti’s Mainote Greeks,
A Turk’s head at each saddle-bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse,
Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,
Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding bell and dirge of death:
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,
The latest culprit sent to jail;
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,
And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,
The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow
Was melted in the genial glow;
Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backword look
And folded wings of ashen gray
And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid’st the spectral past;
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
Green hills of life that ***** to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses
With the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed
The restless sands’ incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours succeed,
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp with heavy lids;
I hear again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway
For larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The century’s aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends — the few
Who yet remain — shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.

Written in  1865

(a travelogue)

He stared down through
the unbroken silence
lapping the shoreline
Water skippers dart around
the rocks and windfall driftwood
settled juxtaposed in cattail reeds
and emerging broadleaf sprouts

A petrified heartwood timber
lie fallow waiting bare barked,
hushed like a pining lover’s
     timeworn love seat,
     rubbed smooth as
     the crystalline waters
     of  half-moon lake

Lingering for a while  ―  
like a hidden stalker,
a perched wildcat waiting
for the full moon’s  
swooning spell to saturate
the thickening dusk quietude;
     arousing the urgent
     call of the wild —
exhaled from the held breath
of the wilderness nocturne
    on half-moon lake

The stillness was scattered
with the soft downy hairs
of the sleeping cattails,  and
the newly shed catkins
a spring gust bestrewed
from a tall resin birch tree
nigh the Sitka willows

     He  sat  quietly ...
     time out of mind ―

tossing his eyes up into the sky;
taking the time to read the stars ―
catching  them  each  again
as they fell into his gentle hands,
to show him who he was

Seeing their sparkly tracers  
trail-out above the cattails,
     from a distance
they resembled falling stars
unable to perceive their own renaissance ―
plashing lightly upon the still-water
     on half-moon lake

A lone shadow glides stealthily
near mid-tarn,.. swimming  
enchantingly with the grace
     of a blackswan
Appearing to glance shoreward
at the glowing low stars
rise and fall, as his eyes
twinkled skyward over
     the moonlit lagoon ―
heavenward of its moonlit ballet;
the lone sleek dark shadow
     slipping through
     a faint circular ripple
stirring the smooth as glass waters ―  
disappearing like a fleeting moment
     waning deep aneath
     a subtle silent wake.

When all the clear lines blurred,
he knew it had been so long ...

     but hearken !
… an interceding
     long drawn out wail  
     echoed  a feral ache
     across the stillness,
     breaking the silence ―

as the shadow reappeared;
     his tears surrendered
to the undulating call of the wild;
he felt the spirit of the sole Loon,
     as black and white
     as the moonlit night,
stir deeply in his wanting heart ―
     lay bare the silence
in lengthy yodeled psalms
to the god of the moon

Diving down deep yet again,
keeping the light he’d been given,
vanishing into the lifespring
sanctuary of half-moon lake


harlon rivers ... May 2018
travelogue: 4 of some more

sweaty forehead, a gory past
wildly glowing eyes of oblivion
shivering hands, sirens, bars
freedom, imprisonment, razor blades

peru, coca farmers, chemicals
smuggler channels, route 36
franklin's face on crumpled-up paper
rattling coins, benjamins, stacks

gotta make it or take it
gotta sell or abuse it
flashing louis, abundant future
sweaty forehead, ****** present

biker chapters, brothers, funerals
tommy hauled jim's coffin
rick carried tommy to his grave
cut-offs, gats, one call: ******

despair, hatred, vengeance, omerta
mortals remain silent, angels don't
rain of blood, a puddle of codes
turf, plots, streets, blocks, gangs

cults **** cultures, weapons replace
shelter in a group home; the stabbing
"shaun got heart, he a furious one --
can use dat dude, pay him up"

black, white, african-american, chechens
territories of unspoken laws
intimidated witnesses, gay mobsters
lured teenagers, deadly magic of power

the old ones impress the new ones
newbies will turn into soldiers
**** or get killed; headshots of fear
numbers on the forehead, blueish

unwritten are the rules of some
bribed politicians, skippers, knockos
the one who wets, will be wetted
others prefer the clarity of faith

organized crime, rats and kingpins
multilevel marketing, elevators
glass towers, late and secret meetings
route 36, the white magic of death

it's all in the game


"The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life.
Your memories, your attachments, they burn 'em all away. But they're not punishing you, they say. They freeing yourself.

Relax."

(Quote from the film "Jacob's Ladder")

on a hot summer day of popsicles and cantaloupes
we're on the asphalt playing tag and pushing swings;
my pigtails bouncing from skippers and jump ropes.
i'm wearing suspenders and a bow tie
and you're in a baby blue dress with sunflowers in your hair
and there are gems in the corners of your eyes.
we're walking across balance beams and meeting halfway
but the sound of 80s music blaring
from the windows of my mother's voice is calling me away.
i look into the young sunshine in your eyes that lured me to stay.

on a rainy spring day of dr. seuss books and board games
we're under a blanket fort making shadows and telling secrets
with our minds getting so lost in stories until we forget our names.
i'm clenching my pink teddy bear, in love, yet in fear,
and you've glow sticks and their light in your hands
let's dance and go crazy, you whisper in my ear.
we're singing into hairbrushes and playing dress up
but the sound of the doorbell ringing
from your father's door taunts us, saying we obsess too much
but we don't care.
you kissed me for the first time and i knew without it i'd be messed up.

So many doors
tightly closed
the need for more clothing and food
can't be kept out
it's a small hamlet
by the river
when a man stamps his foot
the whole village wobbles
a slap from a woman
and the whole village is flooded with tears
a cough in the dark
reveals bricks of secrets
two old stone mills
like an old couple who
have worn out their lives
wind leaks through four walls
a candle light dim and faint
not a synonym for romance and cozy
but luxury
when they can't afford kerosene
they eat, wash, get in the blankets
before the candlelight goes out
remainder of the light is only
for the maternal needlework
a curve creek
clear and lucid
when catching fish and mud-skippers
they become as happy as the water
joyful shrieks waft
in the smoke from the cooking stove
these scenes which can only be
returned to if time regressed are
very much alive in memory
they just didn't grow with me
many years later the warren
became a rustic retreat
days of the dirt and soil
became a wandering cloud
the stubborn local sounds
suddenly emerge from baseless thoughts
the mushed corn
the yam gruel
carrots and cabbage
feeding the dream
the mountains, the water, the people
the kindly kampung
the birthmark
of that era.

I miss that muddy creek
where we snuck under
the bridge, cut a
trail in the blackberries
(they always caught
my ankle, tore the
bottoms of my jeans)
where a rusty car
sat by the water
and I watched you catch
water skippers and
we talked about "the plan"
if a cougar came
from the hills for a
drink.
Where we abandoned
bull frogs and threw
rocks into the water.
Where Augusts last forever
and where we never parted
ways.
I miss you more than Deer Creek
and those rainless, summer days.

I've been running
in my thoughts
lately
wondering why I can't
conquer
you

after all the pats
on the back
and how
successful
I've been
means nothing

I've been thinking about you
lately
and why I'm not
smart
enough
beautiful
enough
her
enough
for you

and I'll lay these thoughts
down
on Cow Creek
where my legs
reflect the sun
and the skippers
hop the water
like they hope for something
new

you are the nest
and I'm the swallow
swooping incessantly
for you

I saw you skipping through your days and nights-
those days and nights we all dream through-
except you are a dream I dared dream awake-
and I dream our dream of today skipping-
resurrect us as the skippers we dream of-
the young hearts we all longed to keep

I knew him. He transferred into my eigth grade class somewhere past half way into the year. A friend raved about how the new kid was so quick to lend her a pencil. I didn't care.

He was in my PE class and even though he looked so athletic, he could never catch a ball. He was always a good sport about it, even as the other kids started to make fun of him behind his back. He talked differently, using big words, often incorrectly, and with a surprisingly hopeful inflection. He was loud. Not only did I not care, I contributed to his ridicule. It seemed good natured and I just wanted to fit in.

We all just wanted to fit in.

Coincidentally, we transferred together to a different highschool; we both didn't fit in, but for different reasons. He was in my home room. He was friendly and outgoing and always did what he could to try and make other students laugh. I couldn't tell if he knew they were laughing at him. I didn't care.

At first when he ran into me in the hallways, he would smile and try to talk to me. Mine a more familiar face to a boy stranded in a sea of strangers. I would only talk briefly and displayed no emotion, save impatientness. I didn't care.

He eventually caught on to my apathy, and left me alone. He preferred the company of those who laughed. At least an insult was a response.

We were all skippers, but he had been condemned to sail alone.

He twerked in a dance off at a school pep rally. He did his best to get in front of a camera when the broadcast kids came around. He was always extremely polite to our homeroom teacher. He talked a lot in home room. I sat in the corner and pretended no one existed. Before he would try and make everyone laugh, he would still say hi to me. I didn't care.

I joined the chess club for a while. At maybe my third meeting he came in and began to ask the teacher about something. I think it was the death penalty. I didn't care, so I didn't remember. At the end of the chat, he thanked the teacher for his weekly moral lesson. I never thought about it.

He said his morals were different from the rest of the world. I hear he shot himself. He said not to mourn his death but to celebrate his life.

I never did that. I never cared.

Even now, his life is catalogued in my brain as part of an awkward eighth grade year for me, part of home rooms I hated going to, part of a school that made me vaguely uncomfortable. Caring now is a lie, a lie to say I did all I could for a broken soul, that I am only an innocent bystander. I never cared, so I can't pretend that I did now.

I'm not guilty of his death. No one is guilty of his death. The blood is mixed with the dirt as his ashes will soon be. The blood is on the dirt, not our hands. But we walk on this dirt, we till this soil, we plant our futures here in this ground. It's time we all started taking better care of it.

We
were once
the Spring

Easter voices climbing
from a namesake lane

Early risers,
Windmill limbed and finding
out our simple selves

Nimble, skinny
twitten skippers, wile-aways,
unburdened, burning, spotless
in our pheasant- feather gold.

One decade undecayed
brought all the stories ever needed

One decade undecayed
before the innocent
were sold

They called me names,
And threw at me fake claims,
They wished upon me death,
And drowned me in their dishonesty until I lost my breath,
They lied about things I’ve never said,
Swore by name over things I never did,
They put up warning signs that I bring terror
And I couldn’t help but think to myself “couldn’t this world be fairer?”

They raged at me with absolute hatred,
Treated me differently saying I need to be isolated,
But the question remains what did I do?
Are you trying to blame me for others mistakes too?

But look at the world and what it has become,
They say its the land of the free but why am I not welcome?

My days were hard,
And my nights were scarred,
For after all I am just a ******,

And “I been quiet for too long, so now its time to break the silence”
“I start with the killing, so F stopping the violence”
“First things first man, you’re F with the worst,
I’ll be sticking pins in your head like im a F nurse,
“You going against me dawg, you making a mistake cuz ill split ya,
And leave ya,
Looking like the Michael Jackson jackets with all them zippers,
Im the boss of this boat, you can call me skippers”
And I met a ******* kid named Greg with a wooden leg,
Snatched it off and beat him over the F(ing) head with the peg,”
Oh did you think what I just said was shoddy?
“But I claim my thang to slang them ****** bodies”
“**** them all, send them (hoes) up in flames’”
“Hey, I slay all (******) who think we play” so don’t put me on blame
“You got my word so observe”
Im sorry but I won’t reserve,
“I shatter and splatter bodies and bones,”
“I bust nerves open” bring me all the stones,

“Oh here I go again, hatred walks with me
Its obsessing me,
Possessing me,
A thousand years time dimension
In subconscious incarceration,
My hatred to man has transformed me,
Into a habitation for demons” where I cant flee

Umm, Do you not like what I just said?
Im sorry but these are examples of lyrics that our rappers spread,
The list could go on,
You can go search em’ up if you think im a con
We have kids listening to such songs,
And teens that follow them rappers on twitter, instagram, from the United States to Hong Kong,

Yet you dare say I spread violence and hatred?
I am Islam, a religion with a text so sacred,
My name means peace, that is what I preach,
To be kind to all mankind, that is what I teach,
But my words are manipulated,
And with ignorance they are tainted,

You see the word “fight” in my text and oh my god it becomes a big fuss,
Have you ever tried listening to me or discuss?
Cuz’ I’ll never ask you to ****, or to swear,
I tell you to treat your elderly, kids, and women with care,
And to love for your brother what you love for yourself,
But most importantly, never hurt ones self,

Yet they still continue to attack me with my verses
“**** them where you find them and drive them out”
But Lets be honest here, if someone were to attack you, you would try to defend yourself with no doubt

For these verses were for the times of war,
To defend ones self , nothing less nothing more,
I mean even in America it is legal for a cop to shoot and **** to protect their life or the life of another
So what makes it any different when I tell my followers to take shield and to cover?

My text Quran is always compared with the Holy Bible,
They say the Holy Bible has no violence but mind to explain:

“Do not spare them, but **** both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey”, From Samuel 15:3

Or “Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us- he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks” from Psalm 137:9, you see thats the key,

They say my woman are oppressed,
Because of the way they are dressed,
But I taught them that they are precious,
Like diamonds and pearls they are auspicious,

Yet they have a heard voice,
To wear a veil or not to wear they have the choice,
And again I am compared to the Holy Bible and Christianity,
All the NUNS are covered from head to toe,
But when it comes to Muslim woman WOAH,
They are suppressed,
But you got it wrong, every woman is a blessing and they are all blessed,

So stop talking about me as if you know it all,
This world is building between us such a huge wall,
And this was only to clear a few misconceptions,
From this universe that is full of deceptions,

And If we look closely we realize we are more alike than different,
In a nutshell, I am Islam, the munificent.

The great sea
foams impetuously
The ships are struggling

through, dive up
from the waves, again and again
on their way to the port

that tames the wild water
The fish fly
out of the hands of the skippers
quickly ashore, to high piles

under the brown-red sky
of the setting sun
and the ships leap up

On the dark horizon
the sea is dreaming restlessly
in a night without time

love in the form of writing is exhausting,
the sort of love chained
to a grave and epitaph,
a man might utter a million
maxims, truths without proofs,
as many observations as the are
scales on a skin of a serpent,
           in that hue of green hidden
subtle variations:
    windowpane arts of a gothic
church...
                because a woman suddenly thinks
herself the Madonna, the vehicle
for what remains in the most common
thread of thought: a deity of ouroborus.
yet i still managed to steal kisses
from prostitutes, i still don't understand
what the problem is, given the legality
of the practice...
but the older prostitutes know
that a kiss is the first, and last taboo
in their "work"...
         why are the most beautiful women
prostitutes? i mean beauty in
the immediate sense, prone to
the cyclone of change, here one minute,
gone the next...
           and if this is all i can boast about,
stealing kisses from giddy almost
        teenage in reaction prostitutes...
   that smile and shy laughter haunts me,
it follows me whenever the light is
not too bright, hazy dim auburn...
    tickling a lucidity of the act in amber...
forever resting resting in winter green
leviction above decay...
   brown and pumpkin orange without
citrus sharp neon zest,
juice like poisonous phlegm
    shooting from a viper's gob...
i managed to transcend the taboo
of prostitutes...
steal kisses and kiss eyes oozing tears,
as she sat on me and said she was tired
i'd say to her:
      plenty more other things
can take up the hour spread like Persian
before us...
       and always with these women
i could allow myself the sort of heart
that was bearable to be carried...
     asymmetry of the four horsemen
and the one behind,
    a fool riding a donkey...
        too many people come across
iconoclasm of a life most perfect,
lasting for a mere 3 years of a congregation...
apparently the ancient Romans
used to jump ****-naked into nettles
to improve their circulation...
because a nettle itch is not the sort of
itch from, god knows what...
smoked European sprats...
        or skippers (schprotkí) -
pull the head off, and eat the whole fish,
spine included...
          you don't want to know
what russians eat while drinking...
certainly not crisps or peanuts...
            as far as I'm concerned,
the world came to Königsberg,
                       not the other way round...
but still the joy of body touching
body, talk, psychiatric talk in condoms...
false memory implants, regression,
keep em to the mind-****
   i need to talk with a body
  at 37°C, feverish...
                        someone without a need
to posture, and out on la rochefoucauld
airs...
         and if all i ever did was steal
a kiss from a *******, then i can be
most joyous whenever else humbled...
                  giddy like a first kiss schoolgirl,
face contorting with giggles
    and squint devilish eyes...
almost like a ****** maiden from the XIV
or XV century historical novel about
chivalry...
               comparisons to ripe fruit
aplenty: apples, pears, berries...
                  and no, women will not know
the sentiments a man might have toward
prostitutes...
        her tongue a chisel striking for
crumbs of stone from my heart,
elsewhere the mind rather than a heart
of man as the labyrinth...
         elsewhere a fickle circumstance
of non-reciprocal loyalty of merely one
word... stay...
             hardly asking for a woman on
a leash...
   such perfect loves,
so much writing about love...
     a love a must a loyalty a trust...
   odes and ideals of this fickle cupid
muse, a chance of poison arrow landing
not where it ought...
           but at least with a stolen
kiss, an hour can give sustenance
for a year... a year filled by a conversation
of two bodies, and four eyes,
    and heist of Jezebel's *****...
flirting butterflies and that bourbon
perfumery of the dim lit rooms
of amber...
                 a stolen kiss,
         the unmatched stone heart...
caging, rather than being caged...
           a canary on the tip of a rhino's
ivory pride...
               that's all because i simply
think that I'd be unable to sit with a woman
watching television...
perhaps if she's my grandmother i might,
and I do... but she's my grandmother...
  sharing a siamese moment with
a woman is to then reduce it to
conversations over a television?
      that's one part of life I don't have
a heart to indulgence myself in.

I’m 32 feet in length
36 feet high
Been all around the world
Oh, the docks and sights I’ve seen
Enough to make me sigh
I knew the Sloop John B
We hung out in Nassau
Then we moseyed
To St. Barts, where many parties occurred
I like a choppy wind on glassy seas
With a group of sailors who know what their doin’
Don’t need any pleas
Had a woman fall overboard back in ‘21
That was a close one
Not at all fun
She got off at the next port
Fine by me, I’m a good sport

I’ve had seven skippers
They’ve all been pretty good
Mr. Bill is the latest
He does what he should
I’ve become a luxury cruise ship
That’s fine by me
As long as you keep me polished and clean
Call me the Seventh Sea

Demonstrate your aptitude
In counterfeiting crimes of passion
Lest we waver to the winds
Of mending trouble when in fashion
Little movements
Rising action
Burst the bubble
Sharp reaction
Tends to tilt the clever scales
Towards dull accord or thinning ration

Best we bide the time and hide
Slow lament, magenta tide

Dance a spell
Your mind’s at ease
Skippers faring distant seas
Appearing softly in the breeze
Clouds all whipped and whirled together
Quickly scripting subtle pleas
Damaged strings all strum in threes
Defeat
Defend
Repeat the senseless killing spree

Best we bide the time and hide
Slow lament, magenta tide

Testament in vestments
Checkered patterns flow and flee
The body to its heart of hearts
The home of disconnected dreams
Rip the buttons from the seams
Fronds of dripping tendrils scream
Within the mountain’s pitch
Beyond a pond of wild magic teems
Whispering in reverence
Rolling in reproach’s steam
Fill yourself in patchwork fables
Piece together narratives
Now represent the winning team

Best we bide the time and hide
Slow lament, magenta cried

Sidewinding out,
past oaks with fractal branches,
graceful drooping bower-isles
in seas of summer-blond grasses.

After asphalt gives over to reddish dust,

a metal gate shields the road from a spindly goat path,
                                                       a suggestion of a passage,
                                                        ­                      a treacherous
                                                                ­                           scratch
                                                                ­                                     on
                                                              ­                                        the
                     ­                                                                 ­                 steep
                                                           ­                                            hillside.

Peer out the heart’s window,
only scree and visions of tumbling down, down greet you.
Move the chain and open the gate, but don't get back in.
It’s time to stretch and let the driver pick their own way through.

Down, down the driveway we walk, don’t run it's steep!
and we are met with a circle of deer-cropped grass,
a curious shed claiming itself a cabin,
and a wooden house.

From the house comes a woman,
laugh first,
to teach you how to crack pine nuts,
in spite of a squirrel’s scolding.

Garlic-kitchen, rustic room, quiet in its quality.
A phone that works often enough.
A black and white tv, grey today
in favor of a window full of deer.

The dainty pink-soap bathroom tells you
a proper lady lives here.
Tole paint cheering every surface tells you
a joyous heart dwells here.  

Drowsy sunny table chatter stretches out the time.
Wooden pegs turn fidgets into solitaire.  
Veneration by languorousness compleat;

it’s

time

to

skip.

Out the door and to the right,
stop by the small pond to see water skippers dance.
Then down the path to the swinging bridge,
a slender suspension of disbelief.

Walk across the boards; you’re an explorer.
Walk onto the metal grates; you’re a spider on a web.
But try telling that to self-preservation,
balking at every jello-wobble step.

The bold bounce like astronauts on the moon.
The wise linger to look for turtles far below.
Fortune favors them both,
as all ways lead to Camp Secret.  

A worn trail threading the brush,
opens to a ferny dream.
A small stream dibbling its way to the creek,
has left behind a paradise.

Trip-trap over a footbridge
to the shelter of a grapevine canopy.
A fairy’s kitchen with a green enamel sink,
tractor seats and a *** rack tree.

Ancient stone building with a door aged shut,
On one end a cheeky wall-less loo.
Dormant spring beds in the clearing,
waiting for sleeping bags to bloom.

Craggy fruit trees form an orchard
gothic as an old graveyard.
Inviting, elegant in desolation,
but we push by undeterred.

Tracing a deer trail up the ridge,
keep clear of the poison oak.
A soundless becalmed summer day.
Perfect for a visit to the dam.

Concrete distaff, copper spindle.
Magic spun from a captured creek.
Flowing through fossily tunnel
to power the electric trees.

Winding ‘round to the other side,
a second bridge but this one still.
Wooden boards in a rusty frame.
More perilous than its swaying kin.

Hold on tight, don’t trust your feet.
Then meander with a streamlet
to the garden just beyond
the mossy, reedy muskrat pond.

High charged fence to keep deer back
from sweet roots growing deep.
Doe barn, buck barn is their place
with tools, dust and memories.

Back by the house, we slide to the terrace
where ladybugs shelter in soft mullein leaves.
The washboard shale is sprouting sedges,
a water snake kingdom by a saltless sea.