Neither road. The shady quiet
Of that path by beech and birch,
Winding to the ruined church
Near the stream that sparkles by it.

Where the silent Sundays listen
For the preacher--Love--we bring
In our hearts to preach and sing
Week-day shade to Sabbath glisten.

16

_He, at parting:_

Yes, to-morrow. Early morn.--
When the House of Day uncloses
Portals that the stars adorn,--
Whence Light's golden presence throws his
Fiery lilies, burning roses
On the world,--how good to ride
With one's sweetheart at one's side!

So to-morrow we will ride
To the wood's cathedral places;
Where the prayer-like wildflowers hide,
Sweet religion in their faces;
Where, in truest, untaught phrases,
Worship in each rhythmic word,
God is praised by many a bird.

Look above you.--Pearly white,
Star on star now crystallizes
Out of darkness; and the night
Hangs them round her like devices
Of strange jewels. Vapour rises,
Glimmering, from each wood and dell--
Till to-morrow, then, farewell.

PART III

LATE SUMMER

_Heat lightning flickers in one cloud,
As in a flow'r a firefly;
Some rain-drops, that the rose-bush bowed,
Jar through the leaves and dimly lie;
Among the trees, now low, now loud,
The whispering breezes sigh.
The place is lone; the night is hushed;
Upon the path a rose lies crushed._

1

_Musing he strolls among the quiet lanes by farm and field._

Now rests the season in forgetfulness,
Careless in beauty of maturity;
The ripened roses 'round brown temples, she
Fulfils completion in a dreamy guess.
Now Time grants night the more and day the less;
The gray decides; and brown
Dim golds and drabs in dulling green express
Themselves and redden as the year goes down.
Sadder the fields where, thrusting hoary high
Their tasseled heads, the Lear-like corn-stocks die,
And, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie.--
Deeper to tenderness,
Sadder the blue of hills that lounge along
The lonesome west; sadder the song
Of the wild red-bird in the leafage yellow.--
Deeper and dreamier, ay!
Than woods or waters, leans the languid sky
Above lone orchards where the cider-press
Drips and the russets mellow.

Nature grows liberal: from the beechen leaves
The beech-nuts' burs their little pockets thrust,
Bulged with the copper of the nuts that rust;