Blooms of the Berry. Cawein Madison Julius

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      From gray, bleak hills 'neath steely skies

      Thro' beards of ice the forests roar;

      Along the river's humming shore

      The skimming skater bird-like flies.

      On windy meads where wave white breaks,

      Where fettered briers' glist'ning hands

      Reach to the cold moon's ghastly lands,

      Hoots the lorn owl, and crouching quakes.

      With frowsy snow blanched is the world;

      Stiff sweeps the wind thro' murmuring pines,

      Then fiend-like deep-entangled whines

      Thro' the dead oak, that vagrant twirled

      Phantoms the cliff o'er the wild wold:

      Ghost-vested willows rim the stream,

      Low hang lank limbs where in a dream

      The houseless hare leaps o'er the cold

      On snow-tressed crags that twinkling flash,

      Like champions mailed for clanking war,

      Glares down large Phosphor's quiv'ring star,

      Where teeth of foam the fierce seas gnash.

      Slim o'er the tree-tops weighed with white

      The country church's spire doth swell,

      A scintillating icicle,

      While fitfully the village light

      In sallow stars stabs the gray dark;

      Homeward the creaking wagons strain

      Thro' knee-deep drifts; the steeple's vane

      A flitting ghost whirls in its sark.

      Down from the flaky North with clash,

      Swathed in his beard of flashing sleet,

      With steeds of winds that jangling beat

      Life from the world, and roaring dash, —

      Loud Winter! ruddy as a rose

      Blown by the June's mild, musky lips;

      The high moon dims her horn that dips,

      And fold on fold roll down the snows.

      Now Lucifer ignites her taper bright

      To greet the wild-flowered Dawn,

      Who leads the tasseled Summer draped with light

      Down heaven's gilded lawn.

      Hark to the minstrels of the woods,

      Tuning glad harps in haunted solitudes!

      List to the rillet's music soft,

      The tree's hushed song:

      Flushed from her star aloft

      Comes blue-eyed Summer stepping meek along.

      And as the lusty lover leads her in,

      Clad in soft blushes red,

      With breezy lips her love he tries to win,

      Doth many a tear-drop shed:

      While airy sighs, dyed in his heart,

      Like Cupid's arrows, flame-tipped o'er her dart,

      He bends his yellow head and craves

      The timid maid

      For one sweet kiss, and laves

      Her rose-crowned locks with tears until 'tis paid.

      Come to the forest or the musky meadows

      Brown with their mellow grain;

      Come where the cascades shake green shadows,

      Where tawny orchards reign.

      Come where fall reapers ply the scythe,

      Where golden sheaves are heaped by damsels blithe:

      Come to the rock-rough mountain old,

      Tree-pierced and wild;

      Where freckled flowers paint the wold,

      Hail laughing Summer, sunny-haired, blonde child!

      Come where the dragon-flies in coats of blue

      Flit o'er the wildwood streams,

      And fright the wild bee from the honey-dew

      Where if long-sipping dreams.

      Come where the touch-me-nots shy peep

      Gold-horned and speckled from the cascades steep:

      Come where the daisies by the rustic bridge

      Display their eyes,

      Or where the lilied sedge

      From emerald forest-pools, lance-like, thick rise.

      Come where the wild deer feed within the brake

      As red as oak and strong;

      Come where romantic echoes wildly wake

      Old hills to mystic song.

      Come to the vine-hung woodlands hoary,

      Come to the realms of hunting song and story;

      But come when Summer decks the land

      With garb of gold,

      With colors myriad as the sand —

      A birth-fair child, tho' thousand summers old.

      Come where the trees extend their shining arms

      Unto the star-sown skies;

      Displaying wrinkled age in limb-gnarled charms

      When Night, moon-eyed, brown lies

      Upon their bending lances seen

      With fluttered pennons in the moon's broad sheen.