Poppies on the Wheat

ALONG Ancona's hills the shimmering heat,

A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow

Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow

Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat

Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet

Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro

To mark the shore.

                              The farmer does not know

That they are there. He walks with heavy feet,

Counting the bread and wine by autumn's gain,

But I,--I smile to think that days remain

Perhaps to me in which, though bread be sweet

No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain,

I shall be glad remembering how the fleet,

Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat.

Helen Hunt Jackson

My Bees: An Allegory

"O BEES, sweet bees!" I said, "that nearest field

Is shining white with fragrant immortelles.

Fly swiftly there and drain those honey wells."

Then, spicy pines the sunny hive to shield,

I set, and patient for the autumn's yield

Of sweet I waited.

                              When the village bells

Rang frosty clear, and from their satin cells

The chestnuts leaped, rejoicing, I unsealed

My hive.

             Alas! no snowy honey there

Was stored. My wicked bees had borne away

Their queen and left no trace.

                                             That very day,

An idle drone who sauntered through the air

I tracked and followed, and he led me where

My truant bees and stolen honey lay.

Twice faithless bees! They had sought out to eat

Rank, bitter herbs. The honey was not sweet.

Helen Hunt Jackson

My Strawberry

O MARVEL, fruit of fruits, I pause

To reckon thee. I ask what cause

Set free so much of red from heats

At core of earth, and mixed such sweets

With sour and spice: what was that strength

Which out of darkness, length by length,

Spun all thy shining thread of vine,

Netting the fields in bond as thine.

I see thy tendrils drink by sips

From grass and clover's smiling lips;

I hear thy roots dig down for wells,

Tapping the meadow's hidden cells.

Whole generations of green things,

Descended from long lines of springs,

I see make room for thee to bide

A quiet comrade by their side;

I see the creeping peoples go

Mysterious journeys to and fro,

Treading to right and left of thee,

Doing thee homage wonderingly.

I see the wild bees as they fare,

Thy cups of honey drink, but spare.

I mark thee bathe and bathe again

In sweet unclaendared spring rain.

I watch how all May has of sun

Makes haste to have thy ripeness done,

While all her nights let dews escape

To set and cool thy perfect shape.

Ah, fruit of fruits, no more I pause

To dream and seek thy hidden laws!

I stretch my hand and dare to taste,

In instant of delicious waste

On single feast, all things that went

To make the empire thou hast spent.

Helen Hunt Jackson

An Arctic Quest

O PROUDLY name their names who bravely sail

To seek brave lost in Arctic snows and seas!

Bring money and bring ships, and on strong knees

Pray prayers so strong that not one word can fail

To pierce God's listening heart!

                                                  Rigid and pale,

The lost men's bodies, waiting, drift and freeze;

Yet shall their solemn dead lips tell to these

Who find them secrets mighty to prevail

On farther, darker, icier seas.

                                             I go

Alone, unhelped, unprayed-for. Perishing

For years in realms of more than Arctic snow,

My heart has lingered.

                                  Will the poor dead thing

Be sign to quide past bitter flood and floe,

To open sea, some strong heart triumphing?

Helen Hunt Jackson

January

O WINTER! frozen pulse and heart of fire,

What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn

Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn

Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire

The streams than under ice. June could not hire

Her roses to forego the strength they learn

In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn

The bridges thou dost lay where men desire

In vain to build.

                          O Heart, when Love's sun goes

To northward, and the sounds of singing cease,

Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace.

Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose.

Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows,

The winter is the winter's own release.

Helen Hunt Jackson

February

STILL lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;

And reigns the winter's pregnant silence still;

No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,

And willow stems grow daily red and bright.

These are days when ancients held a rite

Of expiation for the old year's ill,

And prayer to purify the new year's will:

Fit days, ere yet the spring rains blur the sight,

Ere yet the bounding blood grows hot with haste,

And dreaming thoughts grow heavy with a greed

The ardent summer's joy to have and taste;

Fit days, to give to last year's losses heed,

To recon clear the new life's sterner need;

Fit days, for Feast of Expiation placed!

Helen Hunt Jackson

March

MONTH which the warring ancients strangely styled

The month of war,--as if in their fierce ways

Were any month of peace!--in thy rough days

I find no war in Nature, though the wild

Winds clash and clang, and broken boughs are piled

As feet of writhing trees. The violets raise

Their heads without affright, without amaze,

And sleep through all the din, as sleeps a child.

And he who watches well may well discern

Sweet expectation in each living thing.

Like pregnant mother the sweet earth doth yearn;

In secret joy makes ready for the spring;

And hidden, sacred, in her breast doth bear

Annunciation lilies for the year.

Helen Hunt Jackson

April

NO days such honored days as these! While yet

Fair Aphrodite reigned, men seeking wide

For some fair thing which should forever bide

On earth, her beauteous memory to set

In fitting frame that no age could forget,

Her name in lovely April's name did hide,

And leave it there, eternally allied

To all the fairest flowers Spring did beget.

And when fair Aphrodite passed from earth,

Her shrines forgotten and her feasts of mirth,

A holier symbol still in seal and sign,

Sweet April took, of kingdom most divine,

When Christ ascended, in the time of birth

Of spring anemones, in Palestine.

Helen Hunt Jackson

May

O Month when they who love must love and wed!

Were one to go to worlds where May is naught,

And seek to tell the memories he had brought

From earth of thee, what were most fitly said?

I know not if the rosy showers shed

From apple-boughs, or if the soft green wrought

In fields, or if the robin's call be fraught

The most with thy delight. Perhaps they read

Thee best who in the ancient time did say

Thou wert the sacred month unto the old:

No blossom blooms upon thy brightest day

So subtly sweet as memories which unfold

In aged hearts which in thy sunshine lie,

To sun themselves once more before they die.

Helen Hunt Jackson

June

O MONTH whose promise and fulfilment blend,

And burst in one! it seems the earth can store

In all her roomy house no treasure more;

Of all her wealth no farthing have to spend

On fruit, when once this stintless flowering end.

And yet no tiniest flower shall fall before

It hath made ready at its hidden core

Its tithe of seed, which we may count and tend

Till harvest. Joy of blossomed love, for thee

Seems it no fairer thing can yet have birth?

No room is left for deeper ecstacy?

Watch well if seeds grow strong, to scatter free

Germs for thy future summers on the earth.

A joy which is but joy soon comes to dearth.

Helen Hunt Jackson

July

SOME flowers are withered and some joys have died;

The garden reeks with an East Indian scent

>From beds where gillyflowers stand weak and spent;

The white heat pales the skies from side to side;

But in still lakes and rivers, cool, content,

Like starry blooms on a new firmament,

White lilies float and regally abide.

In vain the cruel skies their hot rays shed;

The lily does not feel their brazen glare.

In vain the pallid clouds refuse to share

Their dews, the lily feels no thirst, no dread.

Unharmed she lifts her queenly face and head;

She drinks of living waters and keeps fair.

Helen Hunt Jackson

August

SILENCE again. The glorious symphony

Hath need of pause and interval of peace.

Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,

Save hum of insects' aimless industry.

Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry

Of color to conceal her swift decrease.

Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece

A blossom, and lay bare her poverty.

Poor middle-aged summer! Vain this show!

Whole fields of Golden-Rod cannot offset

One meadow with a single violet;

And well the singing thrush and lily know,

Spite of all artifice which her regret

Can deck in splendid guise, their time to go!

Helen Hunt Jackson

September

O GOLDEN month! How high thy gold is heaped!

The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strung

On wands; the chestnut's yellow pennons tongue

To every wind its harvest challenge. Steeped

In yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped;

And yellow still the corn sheaves, stacked among

The yellow gourds, which from the earth have wrung

Her utmost gold. To highest boughs have leaped

The purple grape,--last thing to ripen, late

By very reason of its precious cost.

O Heart, remember, vintages are lost

If grapes do not for freezing night-dews wait.

Think, while thou sunnest thyself in Joy's estate,

Mayhap thou canst not ripen without frost!

Helen Hunt Jackson

October

THE month of carnival of all the year,

When Nature lets the wild earth go its way,

And spend whole seasons on a single day.

The spring-time holds her white and purple dear;

October, lavish, flaunts them far and near;

The summer charily her reds doth lay

Like jewels on her costliest array;

October, scornful, burns them on a bier.

The winter hoards his pearls of frost in sign

Of kingdom: whiter pearls than winter knew,

Oar empress wore, in Egypt's ancient line,

October, feasting 'neath her dome of blue,

Drinks at a single draught, slow filtered through

Sunshiny air, as in a tingling wine!

Helen Hunt Jackson

November

THIS is the treacherous month when autumn days

With summer's voice come bearing summer's gifts.

Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts

Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze

Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways,

And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts,

The violet returns. Snow noiseless sifts

Ere night, an icy shroud, which morning's rays

Willidly shine upon and slowly melt,

Too late to bid the violet live again.

The treachery, at last, too late, is plain;

Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.

What joy sufficient hath November felt?

What profit from the violet's day of pain?

Helen Hunt Jackson

December

THE lakes of ice gleam bluer than the lakes

Of water 'neath the summer sunshine gleamed:

Far fairer than when placidly it streamed,

The brook its frozen architecture makes,

And under bridges white its swift way takes.

Snow comes and goes as messenger who dreamed

Might linger on the road; or one who deemed

His message hostile gently for their sakes

Who listened might reveal it by degrees.

We gird against the cold of winter wind

Our loins now with mighty bands of sleep,

In longest, darkest nights take rest and ease,

And every shortening day, as shadows creep

O'er the brief noontide, fresh surprises find.

Helen Hunt Jackson