Poems of Philip Henry Savage / Philip Henry Savage [electronic text]

VI

WOODSTOCK

THIS, Woodstock, is my gift; and if I give So much as this of all thou gavest me, Call me not selfish if I have forgot Thy daily life.

THE STREAMS

OFT have my footsteps in the past been turned, Woodstock, to seek in solitude the life That flows within thy brotherhood of streams; In Moosilauke the slender, in the blue Pemigewasset, and the silver East. Now once again — and in what other scenes! — Thy voices come to me, thy life, across The silver indistinctness of a year; And first, O Moosilauke, I turn to thee, Born of the mighty mountain and its caves Dark, and its forests and its long ravines. A multitude of slender waters run From off the sloping hills, from beds of moss Beneath a hundred oaks, from little stones Tumbled along before thy April strength,

Now lying quiet, making thee a bed; From sandy sources in the tufted fields Where cattle browse, and from a thousand springs Where I was never led thy waters come, Thy blue and silver slender stream. The sky Bends over thee more closely, and there falls A richer gift of azure through the trees Upon thy waters, making thee a brook Of blue and silver, Moosilauke; and thou, Fulfilled of beauty in thyself and round Encompassed all about with loveliness, Art richer than thy brothers in the gift Of quietness and tender solitude; Friend of the green upon thy banks, thou 'rt loved More dearly by the white and purple flowers, More dearly loved if loving be the act Of neighborhood and presence; and as I Do love the neighborhood of green and blue, The forest and the sky; the silver love That glistens in the stream, and that low light That passes from the faces of the flowers; So by this promise and confession I Do love thee, Moosilauke. And thee I love, Pure in thy beauty, perfect in thy strength, Pemigewasset, lying in thy source Beneath the brow of the great Profile! Far

Above thee is the stern, sad Mountain King, Him with the mighty message that no man Can wholly hear: the sternness and the sadness Of nature conscious of herself, or man Conscious of nature, ignorant of God. This is the burden of that noble brow; And thou to me didst give along thy way Suggestions of this message till below, Surrounded by the world, thou dost forget Thy birth and I with thee forgot. One day I wandered from thy course beside a run Of darker waters; turning from the track Of wheels and from the multitude of men Along thy fertile way, to seek thy stream, Thou dark-veined Bogan, tributary brook. Thy waters run and bear a deeper song Soft on the moss, and in my heart I love The memory of that hour wherein I stayed My life a little while with thee; my heart Was opened to thee in a deep unrest, And to the motion of thy currents all My thoughts ran freely; 't was a joy to hear, 'T was rest and satisfaction to behold Thy voice and colors and thy forms; I took A comfort in thy presence, tuned to hear A voice in thee repeated from my own And yet not wholly mine; but more, to live

And run harmonious with my hand in thine, And in the gentle beating of thy life Find my own poise and balance; wrapt about As in a mist of music and led on To live and feel as prodigal as thou, Careless of all degrees.

And now with strength and joy I turn to thee Thundering in thy caverns, noble East, Born of the midmost of the mountains, child More truly than the Saco of the heart And spirit of the hills. The powers prevail Through all the mountains that shall give thee life; Thy birth is now upon a thousand peaks And has been and shall be; thou art a giant, Impatient of the earth that holds thee, wild! And thus thy voice is stranger to me, thus It sounds a note I cannot always hear, Not in all moods; but sometimes, low at first, Above the unsensed tumult of the world I hear the rushing of thy waters, catch The silver flash of sunlight from thy rocks, Then in my heart feel thy great spirit moving. Thou art the friend, not of the earth — the rocks Surround thee and control thy dreadful course — But of the mountain winds; the winds pass o'er thee And catch thy motion and thy eager voice;

Thus tempered they pass onward and below They whisper to the listening ear of man. Or in thy solitudes perchance he hears A choral voice, thy music and the wind, Joined always, breathing to the same intent, A brother voice, an echo of his own. There if he listen, down below the sound He hears the voice articulate of life Made manifest his own; he hears his voice Dim-speaking to him through the gulf of change; Another form, a myriad others, but Ever his own beseeching to be heard In sympathy. Wise in my purpose I, Nor I alone give, noble East, to thee My hand; for thou art brother to the wind, And savage as thou art, child of the peaks, Clad white in rocks and thine own silver form, Thou dost not find thy rest upon the earth But goest dissatisfied unto the sea Where thou again art wild.

To J.T.S.

THE HEDGEROW

THE sun is up, Great God, the sun is up, High o'er the eastern hill among white clouds Insufferable! I thank Thee for the call. Deep in the Woodstock meadows on a morn Pleasant it is to wander ere the sun Has burned the dewdrops off the bending grass; When each small area seems a world complete, When every forest stem beneath the sun Shoots out a light, and every meadow span Is dowered with moving radiance; and the hills! I had not known their power till I had seen, Limned by the early morn, their mystic heads White in the eastern circuit. From the town The path led out across the dew-wet lands, Crossed the cold river in the river-mist, And turned aside before the columned elms, Heavy with morning light; three things remain In joy, of all the pleasant things I saw Along this early path: the glowing elms, Far off, the line of hills, and suddenly (That rose abrupt and claimed its character) A straight and tangled row of heavy green, A hedge, till then unguessed, where loftier trees Stood up amid a world of clustering things, Brambles and slender vines and, stiffly held,

The heads of little, sturdy, hopeful trees. Along one maple branch some colder wisp Of passing wind had struck an early blow And pressed the green life back; the kindlier airs Had after gathered round and now caressed The broken hope into a golden death. This was a passing fancy, but the elms Are living elms and must forever live, Rich in the willing burden of that morn; I never see beneath the golden mist Of peaceful afternoon, or in the time Of open daylight such an upland slope Without the gentle coming of this one, This morning picture and the further thought Of all the hidden chambers whence are drawn The veils, lights, shadows, colors of the world That spread across the poorest piece of ground To form and to transform; then at the last I saw the tangled hedgerow by the wall, My mind woke to a fancy and at once I found it wandering over English fields And lodging with the primrose and the lark; For here there was a hedge! The pioneer Had built his roadside wall of labored stone, And through his fields had led this simple line Rough-set of rounded rock, to part his herd Of cattle and his flock (perhaps) of sheep,

What time they browsed in Woodstock. Early grass Had pushed a carpet in among the stones And here the scythe had stopped; chance-drifted dust, Holding the promise and the hope of life, Seeds, the small looms of nature's garment, here Found an untroubled resting-place and ran Through all their changes. Years passed by and here The squirrel found a harbor and a home; For overhead the angled beechnut hung, And hazels stood at hand. Here in the spring The gold of summer's sunrise — dandelions — And daisies, starry oxeyes, clustered near; The earlier violets were not absent nor In later days the modest, showy bell, Blue, slender-hanging. So the summers passed, Rising and falling; as his homestead grew The farmer mowed more widely, nor his flocks Demanded less his care in fold and field To bound; and so as ever each day more He saw the need for labor, this one wall, Now old and overgrown, he eyed with pleasure; The stones might fall away, the flooding rains That drove the stream up on the meadow-lands Might roll and still displace them, and the vines,

The wild grape and the bramble, force their way Disintegrating, still no care was his; For over all the green was gathered close And densely massed, so that no glimpse beyond Greeted the searching eye; and here I found The hedgerow standing as the sun had shaped it, Richly confused and prodigal and wild, And yet a straight, well-guided hedge and serving Its master better than he served himself, Adding to service beauty and a soul.

SOLITUDE

I KNOW a little patch of mountain ground. Low-settled by itself; and Moosilauke Stands boldly in the west but never sees Its little group of buildings and the elm Close by the door. And farther in the north, Bearing his sun-scarred summit proudly forth, Stands noble Lafayette; he looks abroad Across the sunny hamlet where the meadows Shine with a softer green, yet scarcely knows This low gray dwelling and beside the door Its ancient elm-tree; yet do Lafayette And Moosilauke the mountain and the deep, Aspiring hills feel through their silent hearts

The birth and progress, Woodstock, of thy streams, Born of the mossy mountains and the rocks And running through the hills; and they in turn Do visit and confirm the house in joy. Gray with the touch of nature, friend familiar Of forests and their mosses, with its roofs Long-sloping to the west, I see it stand, With gables not uncopied from the hills, The mountain house, the home of quietness. The village knew it not; beyond the hill It was itself a hamlet; here there stood Its tributary fields and pastures, here A crystal source of water and a world Of timber, and its flocks were on the hills. There lay the little graveyard in the pines, And these with larches and small maples made A decent graveyard shadow; and I see One queer, untutored apple that has placed His foot beyond the pale, dropping his fruit On the most ancient grave; all round about Are golden meadows quiet in the sun, With ombrel elm-trees dotting out the green.

This is the gate to Solitude; one day I crossed the yard to where an old man sat And questioned him, although I knew him not, Brought here among the sources of the hills

Close to the thought of small simplicity. I asked him, "Where is Solitude?" He rose, And pointing with his cane across the ridge Described a course that drew my heart in joy; "Beyond the sheepfold follow the small lane Across the first low ridge; the cattle there Are mine and mine the pasture to the wood; The lane will enter through the trees and lead A mile or more over and up the slope, There where you see the pines; let down the bars At the upper end and that is Solitude." I never started out on any course With half the joy I felt for Solitude! Rocks in the pasture lay, oases bare In deserts of green grass! I moved among The beasts and stood beside them where they drank The stony pasture stream, where little grass Crept thickly down the bank beside the shallows. I wet my lips; 't is like a sacrament To touch wild water where the cattle drink; And more, I guessed it came from Solitude. Then at the entrance of the trees I stood, Ground the hard earth beneath my foot, and sent A proud glance northward; he who thus can stand On Moosilauke and look on Lafayette Is master of the western hills; below, Beyond the trees and pasture lay the valley

Voiceless and crowded by the mountains round In multitude so great I turned and fled Up the long, turning footway of the lane. Ah, silence in the forest! I have learned More from the hush of forests than from speech Of many teachers, more of joy at least, And that quick sympathy where joy has birth; A thousand times called outward from myself By life at every point, ten thousand things Speaking at once in tones so sharp and sweet Their voice was pain, but pain as life is pain Beneath the over-chorus of the sky; In silence finding joy to know myself Deep in the heart of nature and the world. As one advances up the slow ascent Along the pathway in the woods the trees Change aspect, nor alone in this but change In stature and in power till Solitude Seems cut out of the ancient forest. Here Was Solitude! where man had lived of old, Loved, serving God, and built himself a home. Man smooths an acre on the rolling earth, Turns up the mould and reaps the gifts of God; Plucks down the apple from the tree, the tree From empire in the forest, builds a home; Turns for a bout among his brothers, wins A sister to his wife and gets an heir;

And then as here in Solitude departs And leaves small mark behind. The place is rare In this high epic of the human life. Where wildness has been wilderness shall be, But give God time; and life is but a span, Nine inches, while before it and behind Stretches the garden of the cosmic gods; For after London, England shall be wild And none can thaw the iceberg at the pole. In Solitude one sees the winding trace Of what has been a road, a block of stone Footworn, that lies along the dim pathway Before one old foundation; and the rest Is freaks of grass among the rising growth Of birch and maple that another year Shall see almost a forest.