Easter
Eve
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IF
I should tell you I saw Pan lately down by the
shallows of
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Silvermine,
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an air on his pipe of willow, just as the moon began
to |
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shine; |
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say that, coming from town on Wednesday, I met Christ
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walking
in Ponus Street; |
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might remark, “Our friend is flighty! Visions,
for want of |
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enough
red meat!" |
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Then, let me ask you. Last December, when there
was skating on |
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Wampanaw, |
5 |
Among
the weeds and sticks and grasses under the hard
black
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ice
I saw |
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old mud-turtle poking about, as if he were putting
his house to |
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rights,
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| Stiff
with the cold perhaps, yet knowing enough to prepare |
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for
the winter nights. |
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And here he is on a log this morning, sunning himself
as calm as |
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you
please. |
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But I want to know, when the lock of winter was
sprung of a |
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sudden,
who kept the keys? |
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| Who
told old nibbler to go to sleep safe and sound with
the lily |
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roots, |
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And
then in the first warm days of April—out to
the sun with the
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greening
shoots? |
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By night a flock of geese went over, honking north
on the trails of |
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air, |
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The spring express—but who despatched it,
equipped with
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speed
and cunning care? |
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| Hark
to our bluebird down in the orchard trolling his
chant of the |
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happy
heart, |
15 |
| As
full of light as a theme of Mozart’s—but
where did he learn that |
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more
than art? |
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Where the river winds through grassy meadows, as
sure as the |
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south
wind brings the rain, |
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| Sounding
his reedy note in the alders, the redwing comes
back to |
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his
nest again. |
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| Are
these not miracles? Prompt you answer: “Merely
the prose of |
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natural
fact; |
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but instinct plain and patent, born in the creatures,
that |
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bids
them act.” |
20 |
Well, I have an instinct as fine and valid, surely,
as that of the |
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beasts
and birds, |
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| Concerning
death and the life immortal, too deep for logic,
too |
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vague
for words. |
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No
trace of beauty can pass or perish, but other beauty
is
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somewhere
born; |
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seed of truth or good be planted, but the yield
must grow as |
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the
growing corn. |
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Therefore this ardent mind and spirit I give to
the glowing days of |
25 |
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earth,
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| To
be wrought by the Lord of life to something of lasting
import |
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lovely
and lovely worth. |
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| If
the toil I give be without self-seeking, bestowed
to the limit of will |
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and
power, |
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fashion after some form ideal the instant task and
the waiting |
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hour, |
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It matters not though defeat undo me, though faults
betray me and |
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sorrows
scar, |
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I share the life eternal with the April buds and
the evening |
30 |
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star. |
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The
slim new moon is my sister now; the rain, my brother;
the
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wind,
my friend. |
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| Is
it not well with these forever? Can the soul of
man fare ill in the |
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end? |
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