The little green soldiers are here at last,
With their waving blades and spears;
And across the hills they are marching fast
With the drill of a thousand years:
And I wave afar, and I shout, Hurrah!
Till I hear their echoing cheers.
A bonnie prince is at their head,
And his love the legions know:
For he gives them rest where the twigs are red
At the hedges cool in a row:
And afoot are they soon to a birdlike tune
On the northward march to go.
Oh, I am leal to the marching men,
To my bonnie Prince I'm true;
For he tells me the way to his tented glen,
And the secret password too:
And he sets in my hair a blossom to wear,
Like his own good horsemen do.
Then I will follow on all the day
Where the bonnie Prince has led,
Till we drive the Winter foeman away
And throne my Prince instead:
And sing willaloo! With the birds, willaloo!
For the Winter King is dead.
ON A TRAIN
(For Christine and Tom)
Oases are charming 'mid the Afric sands,
Beautiful is summer after rain;
But the sweetest blossoms may be eyes and hands,
And two playful children on a train.
Aileen and her brother, home from holiday,
Left behind them Narragansett town;
Innocence like music followed all the way,
Summer glowed upon the cheeks of brown.
She that was their escort read a magazine:
They were young, and trains are dull at night;
All the passing signals, red and blue and green,
Counted up the miles for young delight.
I was there behind them, earnest in a book:
Lo, the journey turned to fairyland,
When, like magic mirrors, dusty windows took
Aileen's dancing eyes and waving hand!
That is how it happened on a creeping train,
How a play began without a word,—
Peekaboo reflections in a window-pane,
Such a story-hour was never heard.
Aileen and her brother, strangers were to me;
They were friendly for the cloth I wore;
And through leagues of window, youthful play could see
We were friends to be for evermore.
So we passed the hamlets, passed the miles of night
In a fairyland of silent games,
Till the travel ended in the Worcester light,—
Yet we parted, strangers in our names.
But a fortnight later, by an autumn tree,
Aileen and her brother came my way,
And another, glad to tell the names of them and me,
And to hear how travellers can play.
Life is but a journey, say we evermore,
Passing lights the years have, like a train;
Three good friends will travel up to heaven's door,
With the world a merry window-pane.
THE COLUMBINE
Gray lonely rocks about thee stand,
Ignored of sun and dew,
Yet is thy breath upon the land,
To thy vocation true.
So come they character to me
That works in sunless ways,
And I shall learn to give with thee
Dark hills a constant praise.