The Old Farm

Dormered and verandaed, cool, Locust-girdled on the hill, Stained with weather-wear; at Yule And Midsummer every sill Thresholding the beautiful,

Still I see it standing there, Brown above the woodland deep, Wrapped in lights of lavender, And slow shadows, rocked asleep By the warm wind everywhere.

I remember how the spring, Liberal-lapped, bewildered its Acred orchards, murmuring, With the blossoms’ budded bits, Where the wood-thrush came to sing.

Barefoot Spring, at first who trod, Like a beggarmaid, adown The wet woodland, where the god, With the bright sun for a crown And the firmament for rod,

Met her; clothed her; wedded her; Her Cophetua: when, lo! All the hill, one breathing blur, Burst in blossom, gleam and glow, Peach and pearl and lavender.

Seckel, blackheart, palpitant, Rained their bleaching strays; and white Snowed the damson, bent aslant; Rambow-tree and romanite Seemed beneath deep drifts to pant.

And it stood there, brown and gray, In the bee-boom and the bloom, In the shadow and the ray, In the passion and perfume, Grave as age among the gay.

Sweet with laughter romped the clear Boyish voices round its walls; Rare wild-roses were the dear Girlish faces in its halls, Music-haunted all the year.

Far before it meadows full Of green pennyroyal sank; Clover-dotted as with wool Here and there; and now a bank Of wild color: and the cool

Dark blue shadows undefined Of the clouds rolled overhead; Clouds, from which the summer wind Blew with rain, and freshly shed Dew upon the flowerkind.

Where, through mint and gypsy-lily, Runs the rocky brook away, Musical among the hilly Solitudes,--its flashing spray Sunbeam-dashed or shadow-stilly,--

Buried in thick sassafras, Memory follows up the hill Still some cowbell’s mellow brass, Where the ruined water-mill Looms, half-hid in cane and grass.

Ah, the old farm! is it set On the hilltop still? ’mid musk Of the meads? where, violet, Deepens all the dreaming dusk, And the locust trees hang wet?

While the sunset, far and low, On its westward windows dashes Primrose or pomegranate glow? And above, in lilac splashes, Faint, first stars the heavens sow?

Sleeps it still among its roses, Yellow roses? while the choir Of the lonesome insects dozes? And the white moon, filled with fire, O’er its mossy roof reposes-- Sleeps it still among its roses?