PHILIP
SAVAGE
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FIELDS
by Massachusetts Bay,
Where is he who yesterday
Called you Home, and loved to go
Where the cherry spreads her snow,
Through the purple misty woods
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5 |
| Of your
soft spring solitudes,
Listening for the first fine gush
Of his fellow, the shy thrush—
Hearkening some diviner tone
Than our ears have ever known?
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10 |
Woodland-mussing by the hour
When the locust comes in flower,
He would watch by hill and swamp
Every sign of her green pomp
Where your matchless June once more
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15 |
| Leads
her pageant up the shore.
Slopes of bayberry and fern,
While you wait for his return,
Can it be that he would test
Some far region of the West,
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20 |
At evening through the open door
With the cool scents of the shore,
While across our spirits sweep
Sea-turns from a vaster deep.
Sunlit fields, how gently now
|
25 |
| Your
white daises nod and bow,
Where soft wind and the sun
Grieve not for a mortal one!
Only the old sea the more
Seems to whisper and deplore,
|
30 |
Murmuring like a childish crone
With her sorrow left alone—
The eternal human cry
To the heedless passer by.
Marshes, while your channels fill
|
35 |
| And
the June birds have their will,
While the elms along your edge
Wave above the rusty sedge,
And the bobolinks day long
Ply their juggleries of song,
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40 |
While the sailing ships go by
To their ports below the sky,
Still the old Thalassian blue
Bounds this lovely world for you,
And the lost horizon lies
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45 |
| Past
your wonder or surmise.
Fields by Massachusetts Bay,
When your questioner shall say,
“Where is he who should have been
Poet of your lovely mien.
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50 |
And your soul’s interpreter?”
Answer, every larch and fir,
“He was here, but he is gone.
Some high purpose not his own
Summoned his unwasted powers
|
55 |
| From
our common woods and flowers.
All too soon from our abode
Back he wended to the road,
Rich in love, if not in fame.
Philip Savage was his name.”
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60 |
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