FIELD NOTES by EDWARD ROWLAND SILL

I

BY the wild fence-row, all grown up
With tall oats, and the buttercup,
And the seeded grass, and blue flax-flower,
I fling myself in a nest of green,
Walled about and all unseen,
And lose myself in the quiet hour.
Now and then from the orchard-tree
To the sweet clover at my knee
Hums the crescendo of a bee,
Making the silence seem more still;
Overhead on a maple prong
The least of birds, a jeweled sprite,
With burnished throat and needle bill,
Wags his head in the golden light,
Till it flashes, and dulls, and flashes bright,
Cheeping his microscopic song.

II

Far up the hill-farm, where the breeze
Dips its wing in the billowy grain,
Waves go chasing from the plain
On softly undulating seas;
Now near my nest they swerve and turn,
And now go wandering without aim;
Or yonder, where the poppies burn,
Race up the slope in harmless flame.
Sometimes the bold wind sways my walls,
My four green walls of the grass and oats,
But never a slender column falls,
And the blue sky-roof above them floats.
Cool in the glowing sun I feel
On wrist and cheek the sea-breeze steal
From the wholesome ocean brine.
The air is full of the whispering pine,
Surf-sound of an aerial sea;
And the light clashing, near and far,
As of mimic shield and scimitar,
Of the slim Australian tree.

III

So all that azure day
In the lap of the green world I lay;
And drinking of the sunshine's flood,
Like Sigurd when the dragon's blood
Made the bird-songs understood,
Inward or outward I could hear
A murmuring of music near;
And this is what it seemed to say: --

IV

Old earth, how beautiful thou art!
Though restless fancy wander wide
And sigh in dreams for spheres more blest,
Save for some trouble, half-confessed,
Some least misgiving, all my heart
With such a world were satisfied.
Had every day such skies of blue,
Were men all wise, and women true,
Might youth as calm as manhood be,
And might calm manhood keep its lore
And still be young -- and one thing more,
Old earth were fair enough for me.

Ah, sturdy world, old patient world!
Thou hast seen many times and men;
Heard jibes and curses at thee hurled
From cynic lip and peevish pen.
But give the mother once her due:
Were women wise, and men all true --
And one thing more that may not be,
Old earth were fair enough for me.

V

If only we were worthier found
Of the stout ball that bears us round!
New wants, new ways, pert plans of change,
New answers to old questions strange;
But to the older questions still
No new replies have come, or will.
New speed to buzz abroad and see
Cities where one needs not to be;
But no new way to dwell at home,
Or there to make great friendships come;
No novel way to seek or find
True hearts and the heroic mind.
Of atom force and chemic stew
Nor Socrates nor Caesar knew,
But the old ages knew a plan --
The lost art -- how to mould a man.

VI

World, wise old world,
What may man do for thee?
Thou that art greater than all of us,
What wilt thou do to me?
This glossy curve of the tall grass-spear --
Can I make its lustrous green more clear?
This tapering shaft of oat, that knows
To grow erect as the great pine grows,
And to sway in the wind as well as he --
Can I teach it to nod more graciously?
The lark on the mossy rail so nigh,
Wary, but pleased if I keep my place --
Who could give a single grace
To his flute-note sweet and high,
Or help him find his nest hard by?
Can I add to the poppy's gold one bit?
Can I deepen the sky, or soften it?

VII

AEons ago a rock crashed down
From a mountain's crown,
Where a tempest's tread
Crumbled it from its hold.
Ages dawn and in turn grow old:
The rock lies still and dead.
Flames come and floods come,
Sea rolls this mountain crumb
To a pebble, in its play;
Till at the last man came to be,
And a thousand generations passed away.
Then from the bed of a brook one day
A boy with the heart of a king
Fitted the stone to his shepherd sling,
And a giant fell, and a royal race was free.
Not out of any cloud or sky
Will thy good come to prayer or cry.
Let the great forces, wise of old,
Have their whole way with thee,
Crumble thy heart from its hold,
Drown thy life in the sea.
And aeons hence, some day,
The love thou gavest a child,
The dream in a midnight wild,
The word thou wouldst not say --
Or in a whisper no one dared to hear,
Shall gladden the earth and bring the golden year

VIII

Just now a spark of fire
Flashed from a builder's saw
On the ribs of a roof a mile away.
His has been the better day,
Gone not in dreams, nor even the subtle desire
Not to desire;
But work is the sober law
He knows well to obey.
It is a poem he fits and fashions well;
And the five chambers are five acts of it:
Hope in one shall dwell,
In another fear will sit;
In the chamber on the east
Shall be the bridal feast;
In the western one
The dead shall lie alone.
So the cycles of life shall fill
The clean, pine-scented rooms where now he works his will.

IX

Might one be healed from fevering thought,
And only look, each night,
On some plain work well wrought,
Or if a man as right and true might be
As a flower or tree!
I would give up all the mind
In the prim city's hoard can find --
House with its scrap-art bedight,
Straitened manners of the street,
Smooth-voiced society --
If so the swiftness of the wind
Might pass into my feet;
If so the sweetness of the wheat
Into my soul might pass,
And the clear courage of the grass;
If the lark caroled in my song;
If one tithe of the faithfulness
Of the bird-mother with her brood
Into my selfish heart might press,
And make me also instinct-good.

X

Life is a game the soul can play
With fewer pieces than men say.
Only to grow as the grass grows,
Prating not of joys or woes;
To burn as the steady hearth-fire burns;
To shine as the star can shine,
Or only as the mote of dust that turns
Darkling and twinkling in the beam of light divine;
And for my wisdom -- glad to know
Where the sweetest beech-nuts grow,
And to track out the spicy root,
Or peel the musky core of the wild-berry shoot;
And how the russet ground-bird bold
With both slim feet at once will lightly rake the mould;
And why moon-shadows from the swaying limb
Here are sharp and there are dim;
And how the ant his zigzag way can hold
Through the grass that is a grove to him.

'T were good to live one's life alone.
So to share life with many a one:
To keep a thought seven years, and then
Welcome it coming to you
On the way from another's brain and pen,
So to judge if it be true.
Then would the world be fair,
Beautiful as is the past,
Whose beauty we can see at last,
Since self no more is there.

XI

I will be glad to be and do,
And glad of all good men that live,
For they are woof of nature too;
Glad of the poets every one,
Pure Longfellow, great Emerson,
And all that Shakespeare's world can give.
When the road is dust, and the grass dries,
Then will I gaze on the deep skies;
And if Dame Nature frown in cloud,
Well, mother -- then my heart shall say --
You cannot so drive me away;
I will still exult aloud,
Companioned of the good hard ground,
Whereon stout hearts of every clime,
In the battles of all time,
Foothold and couch have found.

XII

Joy to the laughing troop
That from the threshold starts,
Led on by courage and immortal hope,
And with the morning in their hearts.
They to the disappointed earth shall give
The lives we meant to live,
Beautiful, free, and strong;
The light we almost had
Shall make them glad;
The words we waited long
Shall run in music from their voice and song.
Unto our world hope's daily oracles
From their lips shall be brought;
And in our lives love's hourly miracles
By them be wrought.
Their merry task shall be
To make the house all fine and sweet
Its new inhabitants to greet,
The wondrous dawning century.

XIII

And now the close of this fair day was come;
The bay grew duskier on its purple floor,
And the long curve of foam
Drew its white net along a dimmer shore.
Through the fading saffron light,
Through the deepening shade of even,
The round earth rolled into the summer night,
And watched the kindling of the stars in heaven.

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