Poems (Forrest)/The lowland woman
THE LOWLAND WOMAN
Bird-bright were my eyes with watching, as beseemed a mountain-dweller,
Where the besom of the ice-wind scours the clefts, a mist-expeller.
Wise was I in wide-earth places, chinks in rocks, and eagles' nests;
And the canny Alpine mosses clinging to the granites' crests.
Half the world my window showed me. Past the pines in columns gloomy,
Stunted firs the heights have mastered, and a plain-land far and roomy;
Over there a glittering hamlet; over there a rimless sea—
Till the woman left the lowland and came up the hills to me.
Where the besom of the ice-wind scours the clefts, a mist-expeller.
Wise was I in wide-earth places, chinks in rocks, and eagles' nests;
And the canny Alpine mosses clinging to the granites' crests.
Half the world my window showed me. Past the pines in columns gloomy,
Stunted firs the heights have mastered, and a plain-land far and roomy;
Over there a glittering hamlet; over there a rimless sea—
Till the woman left the lowland and came up the hills to me.
In her eyes were rushy meadows, kine among the dusky grasses;
Weeds in mill-streams greenly swaying, where a swallow's shadow passes,
On her bosom ruddy earth-stains, in her hands a valley rose;
On her lips a store of perfumes, garnered where the lily grows.
Slow she moved, like cloud at morning, when the south-wind idly dreams,
And her presence breathed of woodlands and of drowsy sunlit streams;
Not of edelweiss nor gentian, strangers of the upper air,
But of violets damp in corners, pools set round with maiden-hair;
Dancing lights on cabin windows, glow-worms burning in the dark;
Treading down the crackling needles, 'twixt the pine-boles, brown and stark,
Moving like a doomed to-morrow from the earth vales and the lea,
With a red rose in her fingers she came up the hills to me.
Weeds in mill-streams greenly swaying, where a swallow's shadow passes,
On her bosom ruddy earth-stains, in her hands a valley rose;
On her lips a store of perfumes, garnered where the lily grows.
Slow she moved, like cloud at morning, when the south-wind idly dreams,
And her presence breathed of woodlands and of drowsy sunlit streams;
Not of edelweiss nor gentian, strangers of the upper air,
But of violets damp in corners, pools set round with maiden-hair;
Dancing lights on cabin windows, glow-worms burning in the dark;
Treading down the crackling needles, 'twixt the pine-boles, brown and stark,
Moving like a doomed to-morrow from the earth vales and the lea,
With a red rose in her fingers she came up the hills to me.
For a space we spoke of valleys, for she liked my mountain eyes,
And I set within her fillet one pale bloom of edelweiss,
And I drank of earth-bees' honey in the hiving of her lips;
Towns we talked instead of mountains, and instead of oceans, ships;
But the upper air grew chilly and she shivered from my breast,
With my token on her forehead, down towards the vale she prest.
And I set within her fillet one pale bloom of edelweiss,
And I drank of earth-bees' honey in the hiving of her lips;
Towns we talked instead of mountains, and instead of oceans, ships;
But the upper air grew chilly and she shivered from my breast,
With my token on her forehead, down towards the vale she prest.
God has set a moon this evening like a ghost between the trees,
And the plain is white and splendid out towards the calling seas,
And the light of Heaven's garden through its golden oriels flows;
But my heart is valley-tethered to the whisper of a rose!
And the plain is white and splendid out towards the calling seas,
And the light of Heaven's garden through its golden oriels flows;
But my heart is valley-tethered to the whisper of a rose!