“Tell me, Poet, of the way
Winding down to Arcady?
Haunting is your verse and airy
With the grace and gleam of faery—
Dweller you must surely be
In the land of Arcady?”
Slow the Poet raised his eyes,
Sad were they as winter skies,
“Once, I sojourned there,” he said;
Then, no more—but with bent head
Whispered low, “Ask not of me
That lost road to Arcady!”
Tell me, Lover, of the way
Winding down to Arcady?
Some sweet bourne your haste confesses—
Know you paths no other guesses?
Does your gaze, so far away,
See the road to Arcady?
In the Lover’s eyes there gleamed
Radiance of all things dreamed—
“Nay, detain me not,” he cried
“I am hasting to my bride;
What have roads to do with me,
Love’s at home in Arcady!”
The Fields of Even
O STILLER than the fields that lie
Beneath the morning heaven,
And sweeter than day’s gardens are
The purple fields of even!
The vapor rises, silver-eyed,
Leaving the dew-wet clover,
With groping, mist-white hands outspread
To greet the sky, her lover.
Ripples the brook, a thread of sound
Close-woven through the quiet,
Blending the jarring tones that day
Would stir to noisy riot.
And all the glory seems so near
A common man may win it—
When every earth-bound lakelet holds
A million stars within it.
A common man, who in the day
Lifts not his eyes above him,
Roaming the fields of even through
May find a God to love him!