WOOD-FOLK
LORE. TO T.B.M.
|
|
FOR
every one
Beneath the sun,
Where Autumn walks with quiet eyes,
There is a word,
Just overheard |
5 |
When
hill to purple hill replies.
This afternoon,
As warm as June,
With the red apples on the bough,
I set my ear
|
10 |
To hark
and hear
The wood-folk talking, you know how.
There comes a "Hush!"
And then a "Tush,"
As tree to scarlet tree responds,
|
15 |
"Babble
away!
He’ll not betray
The secrets of us vagabonds.
"Are we not all,
Both great and small,
|
20 |
Cousins
and kindred in a joy
No school can teach,
No worldling reach,
Nor any wreck of chance destroy?"
And so we are,
|
25 |
However
far
We journey ere the journey ends,
One brotherhood
With leaf and bud
And everything that wakes or wends. |
30 |
The wind that blows
My autumn rose
Where Grand Pré looks to Blomidon,—
How great must be
The company |
35 |
Of roses
he has leaned upon,
Since first he shed
Their petals red
Through Persian gardens long ago,
When Omar heard
|
40 |
His
muttered word
Rumoring things we may not know!
Our brother ghost,
He is a most
Incorrigible wanderer;
|
45 |
And
still to-day
He takes his way
About my hills of spruce and fir;
Will neither bide
By the great tide,
|
50 |
In apple
lands of Acadie,
Nor in the leaves
About your eaves,
Where Scituate looks out to sea. |
|
|