Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MAYFLOWERS, by FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MAYFLOWERS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Where the dwarf pine reddens
Last Line: Of the north wind in the pines.
Subject(s): Arbutus; Mayflowers


Where the dwarf pine reddens
The rocks and soil with its rusted leaves
And skeleton cones;
And the footstep deadens
As it clambers o'er roots and broken stones;
While a noise of waves the ear deceives
As the sigh of the wind through the foliage heaves,
And the restless heart saddens
With the surging tones;
Where falls no change
From the best and brightest of spring tide hours,
And the children of Summer their gifts estrange
When dashing with flowers
Lowland and upland and craggy range.
There, where Decay and chilled Life stared together
Forlornly round,
In an April day of wilful weather,
The hidden Spring I found.

Ere the Month in bays and hollows
Strung with leaves the alder spray,
Or with bloom on river-shallows,
Dropped the wands of willows gray;

Ere her fingers flung the cowslip
Golden through the meadow-glade,
Or the bloodroot's caps of silver
Flickered where her feet had played;

Whilst above the bluffs were hiding
Sullen brows in slouching snows,
Through the leaves my footstep sliding
Fell where hers first touched and rose.

Underneath the dead pine droppings,
Breaking white through mildewed mould,
Glimpsed a rosy chain of flowerets,
Rosy flowerets fresh and cold:

Swept not, but by shadow swaying
Of wild branch in windy air,
Couched the buds, unguessed and laying
Star to star, in darkness there.

Eagerly, yet half reluctant,
As the daylight lit on them,
Of its clinging tufts of odour
Quick I stripped the trailing stem;

And their lights in cluster blending,
Barren sounds and damp decays
Sank in sighs of Summer ending
And a smell of balmy days.

So refreshed and fancy-solaced,
Through the Shadow on I past,
While Life seemed to beat and kindle
In the breath my darlings cast.

As I parted from the pine trees,
Gathering in as round a grave
Mourners close; above their branches,
From a glimmering western cave,

Sunlight broke into the valley
Filling with an instant glow
All its basin, from the brook bed
To the dark edge touched with snow:

And by luring sweet and lustre,
Summoned round those buds and me,
Red-ribbed leaf and starry cluster,
Hurtled the bewildered bee.

So, until I found the village,
Welcome glimmered in the air,
Where, from porch and vine-filled window,
Beamed a welcome still more fair:

Girlish heads, half-seen and glancing,
Peeped althrough the leaf lorn bowers;
And the little children, dancing,
Clapped their hands and cried Mayflowers!

Since I found that buried garland,
Fair and fresh and rosy-cold,
All has been its life foreshadowed;--
Woods in umbrage banked and rolled,

Meadows brimmed with clover, ridges
Where through fern the lupine crowds,
And upon the sandstone ledges
Laurel heaped like sunset clouds.

But the wayward mind, regretful,
Wanders through that April day,
And by fields forever faded
Seems to tread a vanished way

Till it finds those low lights flushing
Through the pine trees' mouldered spines,
And hears still the mournful gushing
Of the north wind in the pines.





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