Among The Knobs

There is a place embanked with brush Three wooded knobs beyond, Lost, in a valley, where the lush Wild eglantine blows blond.

Where light the dogwoods earliest Their torches of white fires, And, bee-bewildered, east and west The red haws build their spires.

The wild crab-apples’ flowery sprays Blur through the pensive gloom A fragrant pink; and by lone ways The close blackberries bloom.

I love the spot: a shallow brook Slips from the forest, near A cane-brake and a violet nook; Its rustling depths so clear The minnows glimmer where they glide Above its rocky bed: A boyhood-haunted brook, not wide, That has its sparkling head

Among the rainy hills; and drops By five low waterfalls-- Wild music of a hundred stops-- Between the forests’ walls:

Down to a water-gate, that hangs Across the stream; a dull Portcullis rude, whose wooden fangs The moss makes beautiful.

The brass-bright dragonflies about Its seeding grasses swim; The streaked wasps, worrying in and out, Dart sleepily and slim.

Here in the moon-gold moss, that glows Like pools of moonlight, dies The pale anemone; and blows The bluet, blue as skies.

And, where in April tenderly The wild geranium made A thin, peculiar fragrance, we, Cool in pellucid shade,

Found wild strawberries just a-bud; Wild berries, tart and fresh,-- Pale scarlet as a wood-bird’s blood,-- That May’s low vines would mesh.

Once from that hill a farm-house ’mid Deep orchards--cozy brown,-- In lilacs and old roses hid,-- With picket-fence looked down.

O’er ruins now the roses guard; The plum and seckel-pear And apricot rot on the sward Their wasted ripeness there.

Again when huckleberries blow Their waxen bells I’ll tread That dear accustomed way; and go Adown that orchard; led

To that avoided spot, which seems The haunt of vanished springs; Lost as the hills in drowsy dreams Of visionary things.