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'Twas one of the charméd days When the genius of God doth flow, The wind may alter twenty ways, A tempest cannot blow; It may blow north, it still is warm; Or south, it still is clear; Or east, it smells like a clover-farm; Or west, no thunder fear. The musing peasant lowly great Beside the forest water sate; The rope-like pine roots crosswise grown Compose the network of his throne; The wide lake, edged with sand and grass, Was burnished to a floor of glass, Painted with green and proud Of the tree and of the cloud. He was the heart of all the scene; On him the sun looked more serene; To hill and cloud his face was known,— It seemed the likeness of their own; They knew by secret sympathy The public child of earth and sky. "You ask," he said, "what guide Me through trackless thickets led, Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide. I found the water's bed. The watercourses were my guide; I traveled grateful by their side, Or through their channel dry; They led me through the thicket damp, Through brake and fern, the beaver's camp, Through beds of granite cut my road, And their resistless friendship showed: The falling waters led me, The foodful waters fed me, And brought me to the lowest land, Unerring to the ocean sand. The moss upon the forest bark Was pole-star when the night was dark; The purple berries in the wood Supplied me necessary food; For Nature ever faithful is To such as trust her faithfulness. When the forest shall mislead me, When the night and morning lie, When sea and land refuse to feed me, 'Twill be time enough to die; Then will yet my mother yield A pillow in her greenest field, Nor the June flowers scorn to cover The clay of their departed lover." |