Back up the lane, and past the orchard, and through the bars

Into the night pasture.

IV

There in the twilight I see him stand:

He listens to the sounds of the field and the forest, On his brow strikes the cool mountain air; Hard is the old man's life and full indeed of sorrow But now, for a moment, respite from labor, in the pause 'twixt day and night!

Perhaps to his heart comes a sense of the beauty that fills all this exquisite valley

A sense of peace and of rest; a thought of the long and toilless night that comes to all,

As he leans on the bars and listens, and hears the deepbreathed cows, and the scattered sound of the bells In the night pasture.

A LETTER FROM THE FARM

TELL you the news

From Four-Brooks Farm?

Well,

But there is news to tell,

As long as my arm!

"What! a new she-calf born

To this world forlorn ?"

Few things are finer

Than a fine heifer-calf,

And most things are minor;

But 't is better by half

The news that I've got now!

Such a wonderful lot now

A LETTER FROM THE FARM

Of heifers,

why, what now

Such farm news as this!

You were here, when, what bliss!
Alpha dropt on our planet,

And we all ran to scan it:

How the soft thing, with silk down,
Had learned to bring milk down
Without any teaching,
Example, or preaching!

Not this is the news
From Four-Brooks Farm
Nor the ice-pond built
Where Hermit Brook spilt;
Nor the great pine we found
Thunder-burst in the middle
And spread on the ground
Like the strings of a fiddle;
Not of this, not of that, -
Such news now were flat,-
But something far racier!
Muir, of Alaska,

Path-finder, cliff-basker,

Known of bird, known of deer

(Grizzlies know him, won't harm),

John Muir has been here,

And has hitched to the farm

A great blanket glacier!

Don't flout it! don't doubt it!

'Tis as sure and as clear

As if on the rock,

With chisel and knock,

A giant of eld

His message had spelled,

289

And loyal acclaim, —

His ancestry, name,

The work he was doing,

The place whence he came, And the journey pursuing. "This giant of eld!

See his path," said John Muir, "Here it held

Northwest to southeast;

Slow and sure,

Like a king at a feast

Eating down through the list;
Inch by inch, crunch by crunch;
Yonder hollow his lunch,
Of this valley-one gobble,

Then he supped light on Cobble!
This big boulder, he bore it;
Through eons uncounted

That range there he mounted,
He tore it.

Rock-grinding; strata rending;
Always pausing; never ending;
O what a grand rumpus!
Now, down on your knees,"
Said Muir, "an you please,
And out with your compass!"
- 't was Thoreau's

(By the way

As Muir well knows)

And then, in a trice,

Where the quartz glistens white,

Smooth as ice,

In the clear, slanting light

STROLLING TOWARD SHOTTERY

The fine striæ show,

291

Like arrows they go
Northwest to southeast,

Just as John Muir pleased!

And as he spoke I saw the huge creature glide,
With speed that scarcely lessened or increased,
From the far pole to ocean's melting tide.
Through countless boreal hours

It moved on its torn pathway deep and wide;
Its shining bulk I saw

Crunching the mountain tops with monstrous maw;

To make our Four-Brooks Farm with all its flocks and flowers.

SUMMER BEGINS

THE bright sun has been hid so long,

Such endless rains, such clouds and glooms!

But now, as with a burst of song,

The happy Summer morning blooms.

The brooks are full, it is their youth;

No hint of shrunken age have they;
They shout like children, and in truth,
No human child so careless-gay.

How fresh the woods, each separate leaf
Is shining in the joyful sun.
Strange! I have half forgotten grief;
I think that life has just begun.

"STROLLING TOWARD SHOTTERY"

STROLLING toward Shottery on one showery day,
We saw upon the turf beside the path

A clown who, stooping by the pleasant way,

Rough-cobbled his torn shoes and spoke in feignèd wrath.

At first we thought him brain-touched and askew,
But, as we listened to his shrilling talk,

We found him prating of some things he knew,
Tho' others he but guessed;

we halted in our walk.

His was the wisdom shrewd of roadside men, Gathered in wanderings through the country wide; He had a cynic wit, and to his ken

The world wagged wickedly saved by its humorous side.

Racy his speech and, tho' it bit, good-hearted;
There was an honest freshness in the tramp;
We felt his debtor, therefore when we parted
Some pennies wealthier the philosophic scamp!

Laughing we followed on to sweet Anne's cot: - Perhaps like us her lover left the town; Like us he crossed the pretty pasture lot,

And met, and made immortal,- one more Shakespeare clown.

STRATFORD BELLS

ONE Sabbath eve, betwixt green Avon's banks,
In a dream-world we hour by hour did float;
The ruffling swans moved by in stately ranks;
With soft, sad eyes the cattle watched our boat.
We, passionate pilgrims from a far-off land,

Beyond the vexed Bermoothes: O, how dear