The streams have forgotten the sea
In the dream of their musical sound;
The sunlight is thick on the tree,
And the shadows lie warm on the ground,—
So still, you may watch them and see
Every breath that awakens around.
The churchyard lies still in the heat,
With its handful of mouldering bone,
As still as the long stalk of wheat
In the shadow that sits by the stone,
As still as the grass at my feet
When I walk in the meadows alone.
The waves are asleep on the main,
And the ships are asleep on the wave;
And the thoughts are as still in my brain
As the echo that sleeps in the cave;
All rest from their labour and pain—
Then why should not I in my grave?
WHO LIGHTS THE FIRE?
Who lights the fire—that forth so gracefully
And freely frolicketh the fairy smoke?
Some pretty one who never felt the yoke—
Glad girl, or maiden more sedate than she.
Pedant it cannot, villain cannot be!
Some genius, may-be, his own symbol woke;
But puritan, nor rogue in virtue's cloke,
Nor kitchen-maid has done it certainly!
Ha, ha! you cannot find the lighter out
For all the blue smoke's pantomimic gesture—
His name or nature, sex or age or vesture!
The fire was lit by human care, no doubt—
But now the smoke is Nature's tributary,
Dancing 'twixt man and nothing like a fairy.
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?
Who would have thought that even an idle song
Were such a holy and celestial thing
That wickedness and envy cannot sing—
That music for no moment lives with wrong?
I know this, for a very grievous throng,
Dark thoughts, low wishes, round my bosom cling,
And, underneath, the hidden holy spring
Stagnates because of their enchantment strong.
Blow, breath of heaven, on all this poison blow!
And, heart, glow upward to this gracious breath!
Between them, vanish, mist of sin and death,
And let the life of life within me flow!
Love is the green earth, the celestial air,
And music runs like dews and rivers there!