Ah, haughty hills, sardonic solitudes, What wizard touch hath, crowning you with gold, Cast Tyrian purple o'er broad-shouldered woods, And to your pride anointed empire sold
For wan traditioned death, whose misty moods Shake each huge throne of quarried shadows cold? Now where the agate-foliaged forests sleep, Bleak briars are ruby-berried, and the brush
Flames — when the winds armsful of motion heap In wincing gusts upon it — amber blush; The beech an inner beryle breaks from deep Encrusting topaz of a sullen flush.
Dead gold, dead bronze, dull amethystine rose, Rose cameo, in day's gray, somber spar Of smoky quartz — intaglioed beauty — glows Luxuriance of color. Trunks that are
Vast organs antheming the winds’ wild woes A faded sun and pale night's paler star. Bulged from its cup the dark-brown acorn falls, And by its gnarly saucer in the streams
Swells plumped; and here the spikey spruce-gum balls Rust maces of an ouphen host that dreams; Beneath the chestnut the split burry hulls Disgorge fat purses of sleek satin gleams.
Burst silver white, nods an exploded husk Of snowy, woolly smoke the milk-weed's puff Along the orchard's fence, where in the dusk And ashen weeds,— as some grim Satyr's rough
Red, breezy cheeks burn thro’ his beard,— the brusque Crab apples laugh, wind-tumbled from above. Runs thro’ the wasted leaves the crickets’ click, Which saddest coignes of Melancholy cheers;
One bird unto the sumach flits to pick Red, sour seeds; and thro’ the woods one hears The drop of gummy walnuts; the railed rick Looms tawny in the field where low the steers.
Some slim bud-bound Leimoniad hath flocked, The birds to Echo's shores, where flossy foams Boom low long cream-white cliffs.— Where once buzzed Unmillioned bees within unmillioned blooms,
One hairy hummer cramps one bloom, frost mocked,— rocked A miser whose rich hives squeeze oozing combs. Twist some lithe maple and right suddenly A leafy storm of stars about you breaks —
Some Hamadryad's tears: Unto her knee Wading the Naiad clears her brook that streaks Thro’ wadded waifs: Hark! Pan for Helike Flutes melancholy by the minty creeks.
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