|
|
The
dew is gleaming in the grass,
The morning hours are seven,
And I am fain to watch you pass,
Ye soft white clouds of
heaven.
Ye stray and gather, part and fold;
|
5 |
The
wind alone can tame you;
I think of what in time of old
The poets loved to name
you.
They called you sheep, the sky your sward,
A field without a reaper;
|
10 |
They
called the shining sun your lord,
The shepherd wind your keeper.
Your sweetest poets I will deem
The men of old for moulding
In simple beauty such a dream,
|
15 |
And
I could lie beholding, [Page 65]
Where daisies in the meadow toss,
The wind from morn till
even
Forever shepherd you across
The shining field of heaven.
|
20 |
—————
|
|
|
|
Pale
season, watcher in unvexed suspense,
Still priestess of the patient
middle day,
Betwixt wild March’s humoured petulance
And the warm wooing of green-kirtled
May,
Maid month of sunny peace
and sober grey,
|
5 |
Weaver
of flowers in sunward glades that ring
With murmur of libation to the spring:
As memory of pain, all past, is peace,
And joy, dream-tasted, hath
the deepest cheer,
So art thou sweetest of all months that lease
|
10 |
The
twelve short spaces of the flying year.
The bloomless days are dead,
and frozen fear
No more for many moons shall vex the earth,
Dreaming of summer and fruit-laden mirth. [Page
66]
The grey song-sparrows, full of spring, have sung
|
15 |
Their
clear thin silvery tunes in leafless trees;
The robin hops and whistles, and among
The silver-tasselled poplars
the brown bees
Murmur faint dreams of summer
harvestries;
The creamy sun at even scatters down
|
20 |
A gold-green
mist across the murmuring town.
By the slow streams the frogs all day and night
Dream without thought of
pain or heed of ill,
Watching the long warm silent hours take flight,
And ever with soft throats
that pulse and thrill,
|
25 |
From
the pale-weeded shallows trill and trill,
Tremulous sweet voices, flute-like, answering
One to another glorying in the spring.
All day across the ever-cloven soil
Strong horses labour, steaming
in the sun,
|
30 |
Down
the long furrows with slow straining toil,
Turning the brown clean
layers; and one by one
The crows gloom over them,
till daylight done
Finds them asleep somewhere in duskèd lines
Beyond the wheat-lands in the northern pines.
|
35 |
The old year’s cloaking of brown leaves that
bind
The forest floor-ways, plated
close and true—
The last love’s labour of the autumn wind—
[Page 67]
Is broken with curled flower
buds, white and blue,
In all the matted hollows,
and speared through
|
40 |
With
thousand serpent-spotted blades upsprung,
Yet bloomless, of the slender adder-tongue.
In the warm noon the south wind creeps and cools,
Where the red-budded stems
of maples throw
Still tangled etchings on the amber pools,
|
45 |
Quite
silent now, forgetful of the slow
Drip of the taps, the troughs,
and trampled snow,
The keen March mornings, and the silvering rime,
And mirthful labour of the sugar prime.
Ah, I have wandered with unwearied fee
|
50 |
All
the long sweetness of an April day,
Lulled with cool murmurs and the drowsy beat
Of partridge wings in secret
thickets grey,
The marriage hymns of all
the birds at play,
The faces of sweet flowers, and easeful dreams
|
55 |
Beside
slow reaches of frog-haunted streams;
Wandered with happy feet, and quite forgot
The shallow toil, the strife
against the grain,
Near souls that hear us call, but answer not,—
The loneliness, perplexity
and pain,
|
60 |
And
high thoughts cankered with an earthly stain; [Page
68]
And then, the long draught emptied to the lees,
I turn me homeward in slow-pacing ease,
Cleaving the cedar shadows and the thin
Mist of grey gnats that
cloud the river shore,
|
65 |
Sweet
even choruses, that dance and spin
Soft tangles in the sunset;
and once more
The city smites me with
its dissonant roar.
To its hot heart I pass, untroubled yet,
Fed with calm hope, without desire or fret.
|
70 |
So to the year’s first altar step I bring
Gifts of meek song, and
make my spirit free
With the blind working of unanxious spring,
Careless with her, whether
the days that flee
Pale drouth or golden-fruited
plenty see,
|
75 |
So that
we toil, brothers, without distress,
In calm-eyed peace and godlike blamelessness.
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
From
plains that reel to southward, dim,
The road runs by me white
and bare;
Up the steep hill it seems to swim
Beyond, and melt into the
glare. [Page 69]
Upward half way, or it may be
|
5 |
Nearer
the summit, slowly steals
A hay-cart, moving dustily
With idly clacking wheels.
By his cart’s side the wagoner
Is slouching slowly at his
ease,
|
10 |
Half-hidden
in the windless blur
Of white dust puffing to
his knees.
This wagon on the height above,
From sky to sky on either
hand,
Is the sole thing that seems to move
|
15 |
In
all the heat-held land.
Beyond me in the fields the sun
Soaks in the grass and hath
his will;
I count the marguerites one by one;
Even the buttercups are
still.
|
20 |
On the
brook yonder not a breath
Disturbs the spider or the
midge.
The water-bugs draw close beneath
The cool gloom of the bridge.
Where the far elm-tree shadows flood
|
25 |
Dark
patches in the burning grass,
The cows, each with her peaceful cud,
Lie waiting for the heat
to pass. [Page 70]
From somewhere on the slope near by
Into the pale depth of the
noon
|
30 |
A
wandering thrush slides leisurely
His thin revolving tune.
In intervals of dreams I hear
The cricket from the droughty
ground;
The grasshoppers spin into mine ear
|
35 |
A
small innumerable sound.
I lift mine eyes sometimes to gaze:
The burning sky-line blinds
my sight:
The woods far off are blue with haze:
The hills are drenched in
light.
|
40 |
And yet to me not this or that
Is always sharp or always
sweet;
In the sloped shadow of my hat
I lean at rest, and drain
the heat;
Nay more, I think some blessed power
|
45 |
Hath
brought me wandering idly here:
In the full furnace of this hour
My thoughts grow keen and
clear. [Page 71]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
Out
of the heart of the city begotten
Of
the labour of men and their manifold hands,
Whose souls, that were sprung from the earth in
her morning,
No longer regard or remember her warning,
Whose hearts in the furnace
of care have forgotten
|
5 |
Forever
the scent and the hue of her lands;
Out of the heat of the usurer’s
hold,
From
the horrible crash of the strong man’s feet;
Out of the shadow where pity is dying;
Out of the clamour where beauty is lying,
|
10 |
Dead in the depth of the
struggle for gold;
Out
of the din and the glare of the street;
Into the arms of our mother
we come,
Our
broad strong mother, the innocent earth,
Mother of all things beautiful, blameless,
|
15 |
Mother
of hopes that her strength makes tameless,
Where the voices of grief
and of battle are dumb,
And
the whole world laughs in the light of her mirth.
Over the fields, where the
cool winds sweep,
Black
with the mould and brown with the loam, [Page
72]
|
20 |
Where
the thin green spears of the wheat are appearing,
And the high-ho shouts from the smoky clearing;
Over the widths where the
cloud shadows creep;
Over
the fields and the fallows we come;
Over the swamps with their
pensive noises,
|
25 |
Where
the burnished cup of the marigold gleams;
Skirting the reeds, where the quick winds shiver
On the swelling breast of the dimpled river,
And the blue of the kingfisher
hands and poises,
Watching
a spot by the edge of the streams;
|
30 |
By the miles of the fences
warped and dyed
With
the white-hot noons and their withering fires,
Where the rough bees trample the creamy bosoms
Of the hanging tufts of the elder blossoms,
And the spiders weave, and
the grey snakes hide,
|
35 |
In
the crannied gloom of the stones and the briers;
Over the meadow lands sprouting
with thistle,
Where
the humming wings of the blackbirds pass,
Where the hollows are banked with the violets flowering,
And the long-limbed pendulous elms are towering,
|
40 |
Where
the robins are loud with their voluble whistle,
And
the ground sparrow scurries away through the grass,
Where the restless bobolink
loiters and woos
Down
in the hollows and over the swells, [Page
73]
Dropping in and out of the shadows,
|
45 |
Sprinkling
his music about the meadows,
Whistles and little checks
and coos,
And
the tinkle of glassy bells;
Into the dim woods full
of the tombs
Of
the dead trees soft in their sepulchers,
|
50 |
Where
the pensive throats of the shy birds hidden
Pipe to us strangely entering unbidden,
And tenderly still in the
tremulous glooms
The
trilliums scatter their white-winged stars;
Up to the hills where our
tired hearts rest,
|
55 |
Loosen,
and halt, and regather their dreams;
Up to the hills, where the winds restore us,
Clearing our eyes to the beauty before us,
Earth with the glory of
life on her breast,
Earth
with the gleam of her cities and streams.
|
60 |
Here we shall commune with
her and no other;
Care
and the battle of life shall cease;
Men her degenerate children behind us,
Only the night of her beauty shall bind us,
Full of rest, as we gaze
on the face of our mother,
|
65 |
| Earth
in the health and the strength of her peace. [Page
74] |
|
—————
|
|
|
|
From
where I sit I see the stars,
And down the chilly floor
The moon between the frozen bars
Is glimmering dim and hoar.
Without, in many a peakèd mound
|
5 |
The glinting snowdrifts
lie;
There is no voice or living sound;
The embers slowly die.
Yet some wild thing is in mine ear;
I hold my breath and hark;
|
10 |
Out
of the depth I seem to hear
A crying in the dark:
No sound of man or wife or child,
No sound of beast that groans,
Or of the wind that whistles wild,
|
15 |
Or
of the tree that moans:
I know not what it is I hear;
I bend my head and hark:
I cannot drive it from mine ear,
That crying in the dark.
[Page 75]
|
20 |
—————
|
|
|
|
All
day upon the garden bright
The sun shines strong,
But in my heart there is no light,
Nor any song.
Voices of merry life go by,
|
5 |
Adown
the street;
But I am weary of the cry
And drift of feet.
With all dear things that ought to please
The hours are bless’d.
|
10 |
And
yet my soul is ill at ease.
And cannot rest.
Strange spirit, leave me not too long,
Nor stint to give,
For if my soul have no sweet song,
|
15 |
| It
cannot live. [Page 76] |
|
—————
|
|
|
|
Oh
night and sleep,
Ye are so soft and deep,
I am so weary, come ye soon to me.
Oh hours that creep,
With so much time to weep,
|
5 |
I am
so tired, can ye no swifter be?
Come, night, anear;
I’ll whisper in thine
ear
What makes me so unhappy, full of care;
Dear night, I die
|
10 |
For
love that all men buy
With tears, and know not it is dark despair.
Dear night, I pray,
How is it that men say
That love is sweet? It is not sweet to me.
|
15 |
For
one boy’s sake
A poor girl’s heart
must break;
So sweet, so true, and yet it could not be!
Oh, I loved well,
Such love as none can tell:
|
20 |
It was
so true, it could not make him know: [Page
77]
For he was blind,
All light and all unkind:
Oh, had he known, would he have hurt me so?
Oh night and sleep,
|
25 |
Ye
are so soft and deep,
I am so weary, come ye soon to me.
Oh hours that creep,
With so much time to weep,
I am so tired, can ye no swifter be?
|
30 |
—————
|
|
What Do Poets Want With Gold?
|
|
What
do poets want with gold,
Cringing slaves and cushioned
ease;
Are not crusts and garments old
Better for their souls than
these?
Gold is but the juggling rod
|
5 |
Of a
false usurping god,
Graven long ago in hell
With a somber stony spell,
Working in the world forever.
Hate is not so strong to sever [Page 78]
|
10 |
Beating
human heart from heart.
Soul from soul we shrink and part,
And no longer hail each other
With the ancient name of brother.
Give the simple poet gold,
|
15 |
And
his song will die of cold.
He must walk with men that reel
On the rugged path, and feel
Every sacred soul that is
Beating very near to his.
|
20 |
Simple,
human, careless, free,
As God made him, he must be:
For the sweetest song of bird
Is the hidden tenor heard
In the dusk, at even-flush,
|
25 |
From
the forest’s inner hush,
Of the simple hermit thrush.
What do poets want with love?
Flowers that shiver out
of hand,
And the fervid fruits that prove
|
30 |
Only
bitter broken sand?
Poets speak of passions best
When their dreams are undistressed;
And the sweetest songs are sung,
E’er the inner heart is stung. [Page
79]
|
35 |
Let
them dream; ’tis better so;
Ever dream, but never know.
If their spirits once have drained
All that goblet crimson-stained,
Finding what they dream divine,
|
40 |
Only
earthly, sluggish wine,
Sooner will the warm lips pale,
And the flawless voices fail,
Sooner come the drooping wing,
And the afterdays that bring
|
45 |
| No such
songs as did the spring. |
|
—————
|
|
|
|
In
his dim chapel day by day
The organist was wont to
play,
And please himself with fluted reveries;
And all the spirit’s
joy and strife,
The longing of a tender
life,
|
5 |
Took
sound and form upon the ivory keys;
And though he seldom spoke
a word,
The simple hearts that loved
him heard
His
glowing soul in these. [Page 80]
One day as he was wrapped,
a sound
|
10 |
Of
feet stole near; he turned and found
A little maid that stood beside him there.
She started, and in shrinking
wise
Besought him with her liquid
eyes
And little features, very sweet and spare.
|
15 |
“You
love music, child,” he said,
And laid his hand upon her
head,
And
smoothed her matted hair.
She answered, “At
the door one day
I sat and heard the organ
play;
|
20 |
I did
not dare to come inside for fear;
But yesterday, a little
while,
I crept half up the empty
aisle
And heard the music sounding sweet and clear;
To-day I thought you would
not mind,
|
25 |
For,
master dear, your face was kind,
And
so I came up here.”
“You love the music,
then,” he said,
And still he stroked her
golden head,
And followed out some winding reverie;
|
30 |
“And
you are poor?” said he at last;
The maiden nodded, and he
passed
His hand across her forehead dreamingly; [Page
81]
“And will you be my
friend?” he spake,
“And on the organ
learn to make
|
35 |
Grand
music here with me?”
And all the little maiden’s
face
Was kindled with a grateful
grace;
“Oh, master, teach me; I will slave for thee!”
She cried; and so the child
grew dear
|
40 |
To
him, and slowly, year by year,
He taught her all the organ’s majesty;
And gave her from his slender
store
Bread and warm clothing,
that no more
Her
cheeks were pinched to see.
|
45 |
And year by year the maiden
grew
Taller and lovelier, and
the hue
Deepened upon her tender cheeks untried.
Rounder, and queenlier,
and more fair
Her form grew, and her golden
hair
|
50 |
Fell
yearly richer at her master’s side.
In speech and bearing, form
and face,
Sweeter and graver, grace
by grace,
Her
beauties multiplied.
And sometimes at his work
a glow
|
55 |
Would
touch him, and he murmured low,
“How beautiful she is!” and bent his
head; [Page 82]
And sometimes when the day
went by
And brought no maiden, he
would sigh,
And lean and listen for her velvet tread;
|
60 |
And
he would drop his hands and say,
“My music cometh not
to-day;
Pray
God she be not dead!”
So the sweet maiden filled
his heart,
And with her growing grew
his art,
|
65 |
For
day by day more wondrously he played.
Such heavenly things the
master wrought,
That in his happy dreams
he thought
The organ’s self did love the gold-haired
maid:
But she, the maiden, never
guessed
|
70 |
What
prayers for her in hours of rest
The
somber organ prayed.
At last, one summer morning
fair,
The maiden came with braided
hair
And took his hands, and held them eagerly.
|
75 |
“To-morrow
is my wedding day;
Dear master, bless me that
the way
Of life be smooth, not bitter, unto me.”
He stirred not; but the
light did go
Out of his shrunken cheeks,
and oh!
|
80 |
His
head hung heavily. [Page 83]
“You love him, then?”
“I love him well,”
She answered, and a numbness
fell
Upon his eyes and all his heart that bled.
A glory, half a smile, abode
|
85 |
Within
the maiden’s eyes and glowed
Upon her parted lips. The master said,
“God bless and bless
thee, little maid,
With peace and long delight,”
and laid
His
hands upon her head.
|
90 |
And she was gone; and all
that day
The hours crept up and slipped
away,
And he sat still, as moveless as a stone.
The night came down, with
quiet stars,
And darkened him. In colored
bars
|
95 |
Along
the shadowy aisle the moonlight shone.
And then the master woke
and passed
His hands across the keys
at last,
And
made the organ moan.
The organ shook, the music
wept;
|
100 |
For
sometimes like a wail it crept
In broken moanings down the shadows drear;
And otherwhiles the sound
did swell,
And like a sudden tempest
fell
Through all the windows wonderful and clear. [Page
84]
|
105 |
The
people gathered from the street,
And filled the chapel seat
by seat—
They
could not choose but hear.
And there they sat till
dawning light,
Nor ever stirred for awe.
“To-night
|
110 |
The
master hath a noble mood,” they said.
But on a sudden ceased the
sound:
Like ghosts the people gathered
round,
And on the keys they found his fallen head.
The silent organ had received
|
115 |
The
master’s broken heart relieved,
And
he was white and dead. [Page 85]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
Friend,
though thy soul should burn thee, yet be still.
Thoughts were not made for
strife, nor tongues for swords.
He that sees clear is gentlest
of his words,
And that’s not truth that hath the heart to
kill.
The whole world’s thought shall not one truth
fulfil.
|
5 |
Dull
in our age, and passionate in youth,
No mind of man hath found
the perfect truth,
Nor shalt thou find it; therefore, friend, be still.
Watch and be still, nor hearken to the fool,
The babbler of consistency and rule!
Wisest is he, who, never
quite secure,
|
10 |
Changes
his thoughts for better day by day:
To-morrow some new light
will shine, be sure,
And
thou shalt see thy thought another way. [Page
86]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
Oh earth,
oh dewy mother, breathe on us
Something of all thy beauty
and thy might,
Us that are part of day,
but most of night,
Not strong like thee, but ever burdened thus
With glooms and cares, things pale and dolorous,
|
5 |
Whose
gladdest moments are not wholly bright;
Something of all thy freshness
and thy light,
Oh earth, oh mighty mother, breathe on us.
Oh mother, who wast long before our day,
And after us full many an
age shalt be,
|
10 |
Careworn
and blind, we wander from thy way:
Born of thy strength, yet
weak and halt are we;
Grant us, oh mother, therefore, us who pray,
Some little of thy light
and majesty. [Page 87]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
What
is more large than knowledge and more sweet;
Knowledge of thoughts and
deeds, of rights and wrongs,
Of passions, and of beauties,
and of songs;
Knowledge of life; to feel its great heart beat
Through all the soul upon her crystal seat;
|
5 |
To
see, to feel, and evermore to know;
To till the old world’s
wisdom till it grow
A garden for the wandering of our feet.
Oh for a life of leisure and broad hours,
To think and dream, to put
away small things,
|
10 |
This
world’s perpetual leaguer of dull naughts;
To wander like the bee among the flowers
Till old age find us weary,
feet and wings
Grown
heavy with the gold of many thoughts. [Page
88]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
The
world is bright with beauty, and its days
Are filled with music; could
we only know
True ends from false, and
lofty things from low;
Could we but tear away the walls that graze
Our very elbows in life’s frosty ways;
|
5 |
Behold
the width beyond us with its flow,
Its knowledge and its murmur
and its glow,
Where doubt itself is but a golden haze.
Ah brothers, still upon our pathway lies
The shadow of dim weariness
and fear,
|
10 |
Yet
if we could but lift our earthward eyes
To see, and open our dull
ears to hear,
Then should the wonder of
this world draw near
And life’s innumerable harmonies. [Page
89]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
Move
on, light hands, so strongly tenderly,
Now with dropped calm and
yearning undersong,
Now swift and loud, tumultuously
strong,
And I in darkness, sitting near to thee,
Shall only hear, and feel, but shall not see,
|
5 |
One
hour made passionately bright with dreams,
Keen glimpses of life’s
slendour, dashing gleams
Of what we would, and what we cannot be.
Surely not painful ever, yet not glad,
Shall such hours be to me,
but blindly sweet,
|
10 |
Sharp
with all yearning and all fact at strife,
Dreams that shine by with
unremembered feet,
And
tones that like far distance make this life
Spectral and wonderful and strangely sad. [Page
90]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
The
darkness brings no quiet here, the light
No waking: ever on my blinded
brain
The flare of lights, the
rush, and cry, and strain,
The engine’s scream, the hiss and thunder
smite:
I see the hurrying crowds, the clasp, the flights,
|
5 |
Faces
that touch, eyes that are dim with pain:
I see the hoarse wheels
turn, and the great train
Move labouring out into the bourneless night.
So many souls within its dim recesses,
So many bright, so many
mournful eyes:
|
10 |
Mine
eyes that watch grow fixed with dreams and guesses;
What threads of life, what
hidden histories,
What sweet or passionate dreams and dark distresses,
What unknown thoughts, what
various agonies! [Page 91]
|
|
—————
|
|
|
|
Not
to be conquered by these headlong days,
But to stand free: to keep
the mind at brood
On life’s deep meaning,
nature’s altitude
Of loveliness, and time’s mysterious ways;
At every thought and deed to clear the haze
|
5 |
Out
of our eyes, considering only this,
What man, what life, what
love, what beauty is,
This is to live, and win the final praise.
Though strife, ill fortune, and harsh human need
Beat down the soul, at moments
blind and dumb
|
10 |
With
agony; yet, patience—there shall come
Many
great voices from life’s outer sea,
Hours of strange triumph, and, when few men heed,
Murmurs
and glimpses of eternity. [Page 92]
|
|
|
