Lo! now the clamoring hours are on the way: Faintly the pine tops redden in the ray; From vale to vale fleet-footed rumors run, With sudden apprehension of the sun; A light wind stirs The filmy tops of delicate dim firs, And on the river border blows, Breaking the shy bud softly to a rose. Sing out, O throstle, sing: I follow on, my king: Lead me forever through the crimson dawn-- Till the world ends, lead me on! Ho there! he shouts again--he sways--and now, Upspringing from the bough, Flashing a glint of dew upon the ground, Without a sound He drops into a valley and is gone! Joy of the Morning I hear you, little bird, Shouting aswing above the broken wall. Shout louder yet: no song can tell it all. Sing to my soul in the deep still wood: ’Tis wonderful beyond the wildest word: I’d tell it, too, if I could. Oft when the white, still dawn Lifted the skies and pushed the hills apart, I’ve felt it like a glory in my heart-- (The world’s mysterious stir) But had no throat like yours, my bird, Nor such a listener. Youth and Time Once, I remember, the world was young; The rills rejoiced with a silver tongue; The field-lark sat in the wheat and sang; The thrush’s shout in the woodland rang; The cliffs and the perilous sands afar Were softened to mist by the morning star; For Youth was with me (I know it now!), And a light shone out from his wreathèd brow. He turned the fields to enchanted ground, He touched the rains with a dreamy sound. But alas, he vanished, and Time appeared, The Spirit of Ages, old and weird. He crushed and scattered my beamy wings; He dragged me forth from the court of kings; He gave me doubt and a bloom of beard, This Spirit of Ages, old and weird. The wonder went from the field of corn, The glory died on the craggy horn; And suddenly all was strange and gray, And the rocks came out on the trodden way. I hear no more the wild thrush sing: He is silent now on the peach aswing. Something is gone from the house of mirth-- Something is gone from the hills of Earth. Time hurries me on with a wizard hand; He turns the Earth to a homeless land; He stays my life with a stingy breath, And darkens its depths with foreknowledge of death; Calls memories back on their path apace; Sends desperate thoughts to the soul’s dim place. Time murders our youth with his sorrow and sin, And pushes us on to the windowless inn. A Satyr Song I know by the stir of the branches The way she went; And at times I can see where a stem Of the grass is bent. She’s the secret and light of my life, She allures to elude; But I follow the spell of her beauty Whatever the mood.