Francis Joseph Sherman: Verses about Water

Far off, to eastward, I see the wide hill sloping
Up to the place where the pines and sky are one;
All the hill is gray with its young budding birches
And red with its maple-tips and yellow with the sun.

Sometimes, over it rolls a purple shadow

Of a ragged cloud that wanders in the large, open sky,
Born where the ploughed fields border on the river
And melting into space where the pines are black and high.

There all is quiet; but here where I am waiting,
Among the firs behind me the wind is ill at ease;


The crows, too, proclaim their old, incessant trouble,—
I think there is some battle raging in the surging trees.

And yet, should I go down beside the swollen river
Where the vagrant timber hurries to the wide untrammeled sea,
With the mind and the will to cross the new-born waters


And to let the yellow hillside share its peace with me,

—I know, then, that surely would come the old spring-fever
And touch my sluggish blood with its old eternal fire;
Till for me, too, the love of peace were over and forgotten,
And the freedom of the logs had become my soul’s desire.

Let us rise up and live! Behold, each thing
Is ready for the moulding of our hand.
Long have they all awaited our command;
None other will they ever own for king.
Until we come no bird dare try to sing,

5
Nor any sea its power may understand;
No buds are on the trees; in every land
Year asketh year some tidings of some Spring.
Yea, it is time,—high time we were awake!
Simple indeed shall life be unto us.

10
What part is ours?—To take what all things give;
To feel the whole world growing for our sake;
To have sure knowledge of the marvelous;
To laugh and love.—L et us rise up and live!



II


Let us rule well and long. We will build here

15
Our city in the pathway of the sun.
On this side shall this mighty river run;
Along its course well-laden ships shall steer.
Beyond, great mountains shall their crests uprear,
That from their sides our jewels may be won.

20
Let all you toil! Behold, it is well done;
Under our sway all far things fall and near!
All time is ours! Let us rule long and well!
So we have reigned for many a long, long day.
No change can come. . . .What hath that slave to tell,

25
Who dares to stop us on our royal way?
“O King, last night within thy garden fell,
From thine own tree, a rose whose leaves were gray.” [page 32]



III


Let us lie down and sleep! All things are still,
And everywhere doth rest alone seem sweet.

30
No more is heard the sound of hurrying feet
Athrough the land their echoes once did fill.
Even the wind knows not its ancient will,
For each ship floats with undisturbèd sheet:
Naught stirs except the Sun, who hastes to greet

35
His handmaiden, the utmost western hill.
Ah, there the glory is! O west of gold!
Once seemed our life to us as glad and fair;
We knew nor pain nor sorrow anywhere!
O crimson clouds! O mountains autumn-stoled!

40
Across even you long shadows soon must sweep.
We too have lived. Let us lie down and sleep!



IV


Nay, let us kneel and pray! The fault was ours,
O Lord! No other ones have sinned as we.
The Spring was with us and we praised not Thee;

45
We gave no thanks for Summer’s strangest flowers.
We built us many ships, and mighty towers,
And held awhile the whole broad world in fee:
Yea, and it sometime writhed at our decree!
The stars, the winds,—all they were subject-powers.

50
All things we had for slave. We knew no God;
We saw no place on earth where His feet trod—
This earth, where now the Winter hath full sway,
Well shrouded under cold white snows and deep.
We rose and lived; we ruled; yet, ere we sleep,

55
O Unknown God,—Let us kneel down and pray

Last night the heavy moaning wind
Bore unto me
Warning from Him who hath designed
That change shall be.

Beneath these mighty hills I lay,


At rest at last,
And thinking on the golden day
But now gone past;

When softly came a faint, far cry
That night made clear,


“Thy reign is over, thou must die;
Winter is near!”

“Winter is near!” Yea, all night long
Re-echoed far
The burden of that weary song


Of hopeless war.

I prayed unto the fixèd King
Of changing Time
For longer life, till sun-rising
And morning’s prime,



And while to-day I watched the sun
Rise, slant, and die;
And now is night the stronger one.
Again the cry

Comes, louder now,―“Thy reign is o’er!”


Yes, Lord, I know;
And here I kneel on Earth’s cold floor
Once, ere I go,

And thank Thee for the long, long days
Thou gavest me,


And all the pleasant, laughing ways
I walked with Thee.

I have been happy since the first
Glad day I rose
And found the river here had burst


Through ice and snows

While I had slept. Blue places were
Amidst the gray,
Where water showed; and the water
Most quiet lay.



Upon the ice great flocks of crows
Were clamoring—
Lest my blue eyes again should close―
The eyes of Spring.

I stepped down to the frozen shore―


The snow was gone;
And lo, where ice had been before,
The river shone!

With loud, hoarse cries back flew the birds
To the tall pines;


These were the first of Spring’s faint words
And Summer’s signs.

And now I hear Thee―“Thou must die!”
Ah, might I stay,
That I might hear one robin’s cry


Bringing the day;

That I might see the new grass come
Where cattle range;
The maples bud, wild roses bloom,
Old willows change;



That I might know one night in June
Two found most fair,
And see again the great half-moon
Shine through her hair;

Or under rough, gnarled boughs might lie,


Where orchards are,
And hear some glad child’s laughing cry
Ring loud and far; [page 55]

Or even, Lord, though near my end
It surely be,


Couldst Thou not hold Time back, and send
One day to me,

One day—October’s brown and red
Cover the hills,
And all the brakes and ferns are dead,


And quiet fills

One place where many birds once sang?
Then should I go
Where heavy fir-trees overhang
Their branches so,



And slim white birches, quivering,
Loose yellow leaves,
And aspens grow, and everything
For Summer grieves.

Ah, there once more, ere day be done,


To face the west,
And see the sure and scarlet sun
Sink to its rest

Beyond the ploughed field sloping sheer
Up to the sky;


To feel the last light disappear
And silent die;

To see faint stars….Yea, Lord, I come;
I hear Thy call;
Reach me Thy hand and guide me home,


Lest I should fall….

Back, Winter! Back! . . . Yea, Lord, I, dead,
Now come to Thee;
I know Thy voice, and Thou hast said
“Let Winter be!”

O ye who so unceasing praise the Sun;
Ye who find nothing worthy of your love
But the Sun's face and the strong light thereof;
Who, when the day is done,
Are all uncomforted

Unless the night be crowned with many a star,
Or mellow light be shed
From the ancient moon that gazeth from afar,
With pitiless calm, upon the old, tired Earth;
O ye to whom the skies

Must be forever fair to free your eyes
From mortal pain; ―
Have ye not known the great exceeding worth
Of that soft peace which cometh with Rain?

Behold! the wisest of you knows no thing

That hath such title to man's worshipping
As the first sudden day [page 40]
The slumberous Earth is wakened into Spring;
When heavy clouds and gray
Come up the southern way,

And their bold challenge throw
In the face of the frightened snow
That covereth the ground.
What need they now the armies of the Sun
Whose trumpets now do sound?

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Alas, the powerless Sun!
Hath he not waged his wars for days gone past,
Each morning drawing up his cohorts vast
And leading them with slow and even paces
To assault once more the impenetrable places,

Where, crystal-bound,
The river moveth on with silent sound?
O puny, powerless Sun!
On the pure white snow where are the lightest traces
Of what thy forces' ordered ways have done?

35
On these large spaces
No footsteps are imprinted anywhere;
Still the white glare
Is perfect; yea, the snows are drifted still
On plain and hill;


And still the river knows the Winter's iron will.

Thou wert most wise, O Sun, to hide thy face
This day beneath the cloud's gray covering;
Thou wert most wise to know the deep disgrace
In which thy name is holden of the Spring.


She deems thee now an impotent, useless thing,
And hath dethroned thee from thy mighty place;
Knowing that with the clouds will come apace
The Rain, and that the rain will be a royal king.
A king? —Nay, queen! [page 41]

For in soft girlish-wise she takes her throne
When first she cometh in the young Spring-season;
Gentle and mild,
Yet with no dread of any revolution,
And fearing not a land unreconciled,


And unafraid of treason.
In her dark hair
Lieth the snow's most certain dissolution;
And in her glance is known
The freeing of the rivers from their chainings;


And in her bosom's strainings
Earth's teeming breast is tokened and foreshown.

Behold her coming surely, calmly down,
Where late the clear skies were,
With gray clouds for a gown;


Her fragile draperies
Caught by the little breeze
Which loveth her!
She weareth yet no crown,
Nor is there any sceptre in her hands;

70
Yea, in all lands,
Whatever Spring she cometh, men know well
That it is right and good for her to come;
And that her least commands
Must be fulfilled, however wearisome;


And that they all must guard the citadel
Wherein she deigns to dwell!

And so, even now, her feet pass swiftly over
The impressionable snow
That vanisheth as woe


Doth vanish from the rapt face of a lover,
Who, after doubting nights, hath come to know
His lady loves him so! [page 42]
(Yet not like him
Doth the snow bear the signs of her light touch!


It is all gray in places, and looks worn
With some most bitter pain;
As he shall look, perchance,
Some early morn
While yet the dawn is dim,


When he awakens from the enraptured trance
In which he, blind, hath lain,
And knows also that he hath loved in vain
The lady who, he deemed, had loved him much.
And though her utter worthlessness is plain


He hath no joy of his deliverance,
But only asketh God to let him die,―
And getteth no reply.)
Yea, the snows fade before the calm strength of the rain!

And while the rain is unabated,


Well-heads are born and streams created
On the hillsides, and set a-flowing
Across the fields. The river, knowing
That there hath surely come at last
Its freedom, and that frost is past,


Gathereth force to break its chains;
The river's faith is in the Spring's unceasing rains!
See where the shores even now were firmly bound
The slowly widening water showeth black,
As from the fields and meadows all around


Come rushing over the dark and snowless ground
The foaming streams!
Beneath the ice the shoulders of the tide
Lift, and from shore to shore a thin, blue crack
Starts, and the dark, long-hidden water gleams,


Glad to be free.
And now the uneven rift is growing wide;
The breaking ice is fast becoming gray;
It hears the loud beseeching of the sea,
And moveth on its way.


Surely at last the work of the rain is done!
Surely the Spring at last is well begun,
O unavailing Sun!

O ye who worship only at the noon,
When will ye learn the glory of the rain?


Have ye not seen the thirsty meadow-grass
Uplooking piteous at the burnished sky,
And all in vain?
Even in June
Have ye not seen the yellow flowers swoon


Along the roadside, where the dust, alas,
Is hard to pass?
Have ye not heard
The song cease in the throat of every bird
And know the thing all these were stricken by?



Ye have beheld these things, yet made no prayer,
O pitiless and uncompassionate!
Yet should the weeping
Of Death's wide wings across your face unsleeping
Be felt of you to-night,


And all your hair
Know the soft stirring of an alien breath
From out the mouth of Death,
Would ye not then have memory of these
And how their pain was great?


Would ye not wish to hear among the trees
The wind in his great night,
And on the roof the rain's unending harmonies?

For when could death be more desired by us
(Oh, follow, Death, I pray thee, with the Fall!)


Than when the night
Is heavy with the wet wind born of rain?
When flowers are yellow, and the growing grass
Is not yet tall,
Or when all living things are harvested

155
And with bright gold the hills are glorious,
Or when all colors have faded from our sight
And all is gray that late was gold and red?
Have ye not lain awake the long night through
And listened to the falling of the rain


On fallen leaves, withered and brown and dead?
Have none of you,
Hearing its ceaseless sound, been comforted
And made forgetful of the day's live pain?
Even Thou, who wept because the dark was great


Once, and didst pray that dawn might come again,
Has noon not seemed to be a dreaded thing
And night a thing not wholly desolate
And Death thy soul's supremest sun-rising?
Did not thy hearing strain


To catch the moaning of the wind-swept sea,
Where great tides be,
And swift, white rain?
Did not its far exulting teach thy soul
That of all things the sea alone is free


And under no control?
Its liberty,―
Was it not most desired by thy soul?
I say,
The Earth is alway glad, yea, and the sea


Is glad alway
When the rain cometh; either tranquilly [page 45]
As at the first dawn of a Summer day
Or in late Autumn wildly passionate,
Or when all things are all disconsolate


Because that Winter has been long their king,
Or in the Spring.
―Therefore let now your joyful thanksgiving
Be heard on Earth because the Rain hath come!
While land and sea give praise, shall ye be dumb?


Shall ye alone await the sun-shining?
Your days, perchance, have many joys to bring;
Perchance with woes they shall be burthensome;
Yet when night cometh, and ye journey home,
Weary, and sore, and stained with travelling,


When ye seek out your homes because the night―
The last, dark night—falls swift across your path,
And on Life's altar your last day lies slain,
Will ye not cry aloud with that new might
One dying with great things unfinished hath,


"O God! If Thou wouldst only send Thy Rain! "