Lyrics of Earth — Text and Context

Grief was my master yesternight; To-morrow I may grieve again; But now along the windy plain The clouds have taken flight.

The sowers in the furrows go; The lusty river brimmeth on; The curtains from the hills are gone; The leaves are out; and lo,

The silvery distance of the day, The light horizons, and between The glory of the perfect green, The tumult of the May.

The bobolinks at noonday sing More softly than the softest flute, And lightlier than the lightest lute Their fairy tambours ring.

The roads far off are towered with dust; The cherry-blooms are swept and thinned; In yonder swaying elms the wind Is charging gust on gust.

But here there is no stir at all; The ministers of sun and shadow Horde all the perfumes of the meadow Behind a grassy wall.

An infant rivulet wind-free Adown the guarded hollow sets, Over whose brink the violets Are nodding peacefully.

From pool to pool it prattles by; The flashing swallows dip and pass, Above the tufted marish grass, And here at rest am I.

I care not for the old distress, Nor if to-morrow bid me moan; To-day is mine, and I have known An hour of blessedness.

I passed through the gates of the city, The streets were strange and still, Through the doors of the open churches The organs were moaning shrill.

Through the doors and the great high windows I heard the murmur of prayer, And the sound of their solemn singing Streamed out on the sunlit air;

A sound of some great burden That lay on the world's dark breast, Of the old, and the sick, and the lonely, And the weary that cried for rest.

I strayed through the midst of the city Like one distracted or mad. "Oh, Life! Oh, Life!" I kept saying, And the very word seemed sad.

I passed through the gates of the city, And I heard the small birds sing, I laid me down in the meadows Afar from the bell-ringing.

In the depth and the bloom of the meadows I lay on the earth's quiet breast, The poplar fanned me with shadows, And the veery sang me to rest.

Blue, blue was the heaven above me, And the earth green at my feet; "Oh, Life! Oh, Life!" I kept saying, And the very word seemed sweet.

O doubts, dull passions, and base fears, That harassed and oppressed the day, Ye poor remorses and vain tears, That shook this house of clay:

All heaven to the western bars Is glittering with the darker dawn; Here with the earth, the night, the stars, Ye have no place: begone!

Long, long ago, it seems, this summer morn That pale-browed April passed with pensive tread Through the frore woods, and from its frost-bound bed Woke the arbutus with her silver horn; And now May, too, is fled, The flower-crowned month, the merry laughing May, With rosy feet and fingers dewy wet, Leaving the woods and all cool gardens gay With tulips and the scented violet.

Gone are the wind-flower and the adder-tongue And the sad drooping bellwort, and no more The snowy trilliums crowd the forest's floor; The purpling grasses are no longer young, And summer's wide-set door O'er the thronged hills and the broad panting earth Lets in the torrent of the later bloom, Haytime, and harvest, and the after mirth, The slow soft rain, the rushing thunder plume.

All day in garden alleys moist and dim, The humid air is burdened with the rose; In moss-deep woods the creamy orchid blows; And now the vesper-sparrows' pealing hymn From every orchard close At eve comes flooding rich and silvery; The daisies in great meadows swing and shine; And with the wind a sound as of the sea Roars in the maples and the topmost pine.

High in the hills the solitary thrush Tunes magically his music of fine dreams, In briary dells, by boulder-broken streams; And wide and far on nebulous fields aflush The mellow morning gleams. The orange cone-flowers purple-bossed are there, The meadow's bold-eyed gypsies deep of hue, And slender hawkweed tall and softly fair, And rosy tops of fleabane veiled with dew.

So with thronged voices and unhasting flight The fervid hours with long return go by; The far-heard hylas piping shrill and high Tell the slow moments of the solemn night With unremitting cry; Lustrous and large out of the gathering drouth The planets gleam; the baleful Scorpion Trails his dim fires along the droused south; The silent world-incrusted round moves on.