How it was I can not tell,

      For I know not where nor why,

      And the beautiful befell

      In a land that does not lie

      East or West where mortals dwell —

      But beneath a vaguer sky.

      Was it in the golden ages,

      Or the iron, that I heard,

      In prophetic speech of sages,

      How had come a snowy bird

      'Neath whose wing lay written pages

      Of an unknown lover's word?

      I forget; you may remember

      How the earthquake shook our ships;

      How our city, one huge ember,

      Blazed within the thick eclipse;

      When you found me – deep December

      Sealed on icy eyes and lips.

      I forget. No one may say

      Pre-existences are true:

      Here 's a flower dies to-day,

      Resurrected blooms anew:

      Death is dumb and Life is gray —

      Who shall doubt what God can do!

      As to this, nothing to tell,

      You being all my belief;

      Doubt may not enter or dwell

      Here where your image is chief,

      Royal, to quicken or quell,

      Swaying no sceptre of grief.

      Wise with the wisdom of Spring —

      Dew-drops, a world in each prism,

      Gems from the universe ring: —

      Free of all creed and all schism,

      Buds that are speechless but bring

      God-uttered God aphorism.

      See how the synod is met

      There of the planets to preach us —

      Freed from the frost's oubliette,

      Here how the flowers beseech us —

      Were it not well to forget

      Winter and night as they teach us?

      Dew-drop, a bud, and a star,

      These – each a separate thought

      Over man's logic how far! —

      God to a unit hath wrought —

      Love, making these what they are,

      For without love they were naught.

      Millions of stars; and they roll

      Over your path that is white,

      Here where we end the long stroll. —

      Seen of the innermost sight,

      All of the love of my soul

      Kisses your spirit. Good-night.

      Sad skies and a foggy rain

      Dripping from streaming eaves;

      Over and over again

      Dead drop of the trickling leaves;

      And the woodward winding lane,

      And the hill with its shocks of sheaves,

      One scarce perceives.

      Must I go in such sad weather

      By the lane or over the hill?

      Where the splitting milk-weed's feather

      Dim, diamond-like rain-drops fill?

      Or where, ten stars together,

      Buff ox-eyes rank the rill

      By the old corn-mill?

      The creek by this is swollen,

      And its foaming cascades sound;

      And the lilies, smeared with pollen,

      In the race look dull and drowned; —

      'T is the path we oft have stolen

      To the bridge, that rambles round

      With willows crowned.

      Through a bottom wild with berry

      Or packed with the iron-weeds,

      With their blue combs washed and very

      Purple; the sorghum meads

      Glint green near a wilding cherry;

      Where the high wild-lettuce seeds

      The fenced path leads.

      A bird in the rain beseeches;

      And the balsams' budding balls

      Smell drenched by the way which reaches

      The wood where the water falls;

      Where the warty water-beeches

      Hang leaves one blister of galls,

      The mill-wheel drawls.

      My shawl instead of a bonnet!..

      Though the wood be soaking yet

      Through the wet to the rock I 'll run it —

      How sweet to meet in the wet! —

      Our rock with the vine upon it,

      Each flower a fiery jet – …

      He won't forget!

      Deep are the lilies here that lay

      Lush, lambent leaves along our way,

      Or pollen-dusty bob and float

      White nenuphars about our boat

      This side the woodland we have reached;

      Two rapid strokes our skiff is beached.

      There is no path. Heaped foxgrapes choke

      Huge trunks they wrap. This giant oak

      Floods from the Alleghanies bore

      To wedge here by this sycamore;

      Its wounded bulk,