DUMB IN JUNE
Written on the fly leaf of Richard Burton’s volume of verse, “Dumb in June.”
June that floods the earth with sweetness,
Songs and scents and petals bright;
How my heart in your completeness
Loses self with full delight!
Think you if with no lip-greeting
I give welcome warmly told,
That my spirit to this meeting
Springs not as in time of old?
Dearer comer than when child-heart
Sang to greet you from the hill;
Dearer to the captive wild-heart
Where the music now is still.
Should I sing when you are singing
Through my soul’s most shadowed ways,
Jubilant with promise, ringing
Down the drone of common days?
June-time! Spring-time! Hour of growing!
Time with all renewing blest!
Throbbing from a heart o’er-flowing,
Silent songs may praise you best.
MEMORIAM
In memory of our dead! The dead that lie
Near, love-guarded graves, where still our tenderness
Can reach out like a hand across the dark
To touch the still hands folded close in rest.
The near, loved dead that were our own;
That walked with us the busy common ways,
And made life dear, and homely duties sweet.
In memory of our dead! In memory of the memories that go
Forever with us, till we, too, shall lie
With still, white faces turned to meet the stars.
In memory, in hope, in tenderness!
Rest ye, O well-beloved, remembered dead!
Peace with you! Ye that do but keep
The bivouac till we come.
Ye that but wait us till the march is done;
Arms stacked; and guidons fluttering
Above the camp of our eternal rest.
In memory! In memory of the far, forgotten dead,
That lie unheeded in the common dust.
In memory of the daring hearts that sleep
In unmarked graves beside forgotten trails;
The men who set their faces to the West,
And blazed the way for empires yet to come—
Winning at last a width of nameless sod.
In memory! Wherever one brave soul goes out
Strong-hearted on that last, lone road all men must take,
He, too, is comrade, and his courage is
A bugle call that rings “Advance, nor fear!”
To every hard-pressed soul upon the way.
Wherever one spent toiler for the common good
Lets fall his tools from weary, calloused hands,
His work is ours,—a trust to further to the fullest end.
No hope that ever warmed a human heart
Was lost when that heart crumbled into dust:
The dreams that woke the sunrise of the world are ours—
Our dead walk with us daily, hand in hand.
But every joy we know to give or keep;
By hearts more gentle, and by eyes more true,
They are our own, and undivided still.
In memory! In memory of the dead!
In tenderness and hope for all who live!
Peace with you, ye that lie at rest!
Hope with you, ye that live and yet must face
The pain of living!
In memory, in hope, in tenderness!
AS A LITTLE SHADOW ON THE GRASS
How all alone we are, despite our striving
For sympathy and love!
How all alone we are in this our living,
With silent skies above!
These stars of ours have shone on Alexander;
Their tender light was old
What time the Roman hills knew lost Evander;
The night winds sweet and cold
Have lingered in the dusk with Omar’s roses;
They keep the fragrance yet!
And all the rare, green earth that round us closes
Whispers a vague regret.
It is not ours; we are not its first lovers;
We do but journey here
Where every little springing grass blade covers
Some heart once held as dear.
We yearn to touch them, stretch our hands in greeting;
To make them all our own.
Mist wraiths and dreams! they vanish at the meeting
And we pass on alone.
DAWN
Once the Dawn among the trees whispered me such words as these:
“There was stillness in the valley, there was darkness on the hill,
Till my spirit came among them, borne upon a minion breeze,
Woke them into light and music and dispelled them with my will.
“Where my fingers touched the tresses of the clouds with swift caresses,
Burned a splendor like the jewels set to bind a princess’ hair;
Softly from my garment shaken fell the gentle dew that blesses
Every sweet and stately blossom meet to make the morning fair.
“Then the birds with liquid singing set the leafy woodland ringing,
Till the cattle in the meadow waked the joyous songs to mark;
And the great, gold sun leaped upward, all the light of heaven bringing—
Heart, hast thou a morning also, waiting just beyond the dark?”