[From Songs of Nature, edited by John Burroughs (New York, 1901)]
If this be all, for which I've listened long,
Oh, spirit of the dew!
You did not sing to Shelley such a song
As Shelley sung to you.
Yet, with this ruined Old World for a nest,
Worm-eaten through and through,—
This waste of grave-dust stamped with crown and crest,—
What better could you do?
Ah me! but when the world and I were young,
There was an apple-tree,
There was a voice came in the dawn and sung
The buds awake—ah me!
Oh, Lark of Europe, downward fluttering near,
Like some spent leaf at best,
You'd never sing again if you could hear
My Blue-Bird of the West!
THE GIFT OF TEARS[22]
[From The Gift of Tears (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1906)]
The legend says: In Paradise
God gave the world to man. Ah me!
The woman lifted up her eyes:
"Woman, I have but tears for thee."
But tears? And she began to shed,
Thereat, the tears that comforted.
(No other beautiful woman breathed,
No rival among men had he,
The seraph's sword of fire was sheathed,
The golden fruit hung on the tree.
Her lord was lord of all the earth,
Wherein no child had wailed its birth),
Tears to a bride? Yea, therefore tears.
In Eden? Yea, and tears therefore.
Ah, bride in Eden, there were fears
In the first blush your young cheek wore,
Lest that first kiss had been too sweet,
Lest Eden withered from your feet!