Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1891-12-24
ELM WOOD.



lin memory of james Russell Lnwell.l
Here, in the twilight, at the well-known
gate
| linger with no heart to enter more.
Among the ciin-tops the autumnal air
Murmnrs, and spectral in the fading light
A solitary heron wings its way
Southward-save this no sound or touch of
life.
Dark is that window where the scholars
lamp
Was used to catch pallor from the dawn.
Yet must needs little linger here.
Each shrub and tree is eloquent of him.
For tongueless things and silence have
their speech.
This is the path familiar to his foot
From infancy 10 manhood and old age;
For in a chamber of that ancient house
His eyes first opened on the mystery
Of llte and all the splendor Of the world.
lie watched the bluebird's coming; learned
the date
OF hyacinth and golden-rod, and made
Friends of those little redmen Of the eims.
And slyly added to their winter store
OF hazelnutsi no harmless thing that
breathed,
Footed or winged, but knew him for a
The gilded butterfly was not afraid
To trust its gold to that so gentle hand.
All, happy childhood, ringed with FORUM
ate stars
What dreams were his in this enchanted
sphere,
What intuitions of high destiny
The honey Of Hybla touched his lips
In that old new-world garden, unawares,
So in her arms did Mother Nature fold
Her poet whispering what Of wild and
sweet
Into his ear-the state-affairs of birds,
The lore. Of dawn and sunset, what the
winds
Said in the tree-tops-fne, unfathomed
things
llencefnrtli TO turn to music in his BRAIN
A various music, now like notes of flutes.
And now like blasts of trumpets blown in
wars.
Later he paced this leafy academe
a student, drinking from Greek chalices
The rlpened vintage of the antique world
And here to him came love, and loves dear
loss;
Here honors came, the deep applause of
Touchedt to the heart by some swift-winged
That from his own full heart took eager
flight
Some strain of piercing sweetness or re-
bukc,
For underneath his gentle nature famed
Himself abDndman till all men were free.
Thus passed his manhood; then to other
lands
| lie strayed. n stainless figure among courts
beside the Man2anares and the Thames.
WHENCE after ton long exile, he returned
With fresher laurel, but sedator step
And eye more serious, fain to breathe the
air
Where through the Cambridge marshes the
blue Charles
uncoils its length and stretches to the sea.
Stream dear to him, at every curve n shrine
FOR pilgrim memory. Again he watched
| His loved syringa whitening by the door,
And knew the catbrds welcome; in his
walks
| Smiled on his tawny kinsmen of the elms
Stealing his nuts; and in the ruined year
Sat at his widowed hearthsidc with bent
brows
Leonine, frosty with the breath Of time,
| And listened to the grooming of the wind
| In the wide Elmwood chimneys, as Of old.
| And then-and then y
The after-glow has faded from the elms.
| And i'll the denser darkness of the boughs
| From time to time the fireilys tiny lamp
| Sparkles. How often in still summer dusks
lie paused to note that transient phantom
| spark
Flash on the air-a light that outlasts him!
The night grows chill, as if il felt breath
Blown from that frozen city whose he lies.
All things. turn strange. The leaf that
| rtlstles here
Has more than autllmn's mournfulness.
The place
Is heavy with his absence. Like fixed eyes
Whence the dear light of sense and thought
has fled
| The vacant windows stare across the lawn.
| The wise sweet spirit that informed it all
Is otherwhere. The house itself is dead.
o autumn wind among the sombre pines,
Breathe you his dirge, but be it sweet and
low,
With deep refrains and murmurs of the
sea,
Like to his verse-the art is yours alone.
His once-you taught him. Now no voice
| but yonrS
Tender and low, wind among the pines.
would. were mine a Tyre of richer strings
In soft sicilian accents wrap his name.
--,Scribners.
Don't pray too long in church on q
cold day if your horse is standing out
| ~ L., - 4 L.