Among the Trees Again

COPYRIGHT 1902

THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY

OCTOBER

To the memory of my beloved brother

Orth Harper Stein

CONTENTS

Among the Trees Again

I saw a meadow-land, one day;

The grass stood green and high,

But naught appealed in any way

To stay the passer-by.

Till suddenly the sunlight strayed

Those leafy tangles through,

And touched to fire, on every blade

A golden network grew!

A million airy cobwebs gleamed

So silken-soft and bright,

That all the level lowland seemed

A tracery of light.

And as I watched the webs, I thought

The field of life along,

As slight as these, so I have wrought

With slender threads of song.

They bind the grass, and blossoms, too,

The bee and butterfly,

And some go faintly wavering through

The tender azure sky.

Yet still I wait that golden glow

Whose fine transmuting art

Must smite my web of song, and so

Reveal it to the heart.

Ah therefore, thou, I pray thee, touch

These frail threads I have spun,

With grace of sympathy, for such

Might light them like the sun!

AMONG THE TREES AGAIN

Aye, throb, my heart! is it not sweet to be,

To breathe, to bide, by growing things once more!

We did not guess before

How close our life was locked in greenery.

Hark! how the sparrows in the apple tree

Are chattering, chirping, till their tiny throats

Are fairly brimmed and quivering through and through

With rollick notes!

Good morrow, little birds!

Good morrow! morrow!—O, I would I knew

Some light-winged language, kindred singing words

Wherein to say

This day, this day, at last this happy day

I come to be a neighbor unto you!

Too long, too long, we heard strange footsteps pass,

Harsh, strident echoes stricken out of stone;

But never softened by green, growing grass,

Or mellowed to faint, earthy undertone.

And then, O heart,

Did we not ofttimes feel ourselves apart,

Alone,

Wrought to vague discord by some touch unknown?

Did we not weary with a nameless grief,

In dreaming of tall clover, daisy sown,

Or music blown

From the wind-harping of some little leaf?

It was not that within the city’s core

There dwelt no sympathies, nor interests keen,

No human ties to temper its fatigues.

—’Twas only that we needed something more;

Some note rang wrong;

A foolish fancy, may be, but still strong,

That life sang sweeter snatched between the green

Close-lapping verdure of a fret of twigs.

Where all the ground was paven out of sight,

And only from a far-off strip of sky

My mother Nature strove to speak to me,

I could not harken to her voice aright;

I knew not why,

But ever to mine ears some whispering tree

Seemed of the inmost golden soul of her,

The best interpreter.

And so what wonder, Life, that you and I,

Shut out from such glad confidence, should miss

And grieve for this.

—But all this yearning we’ll forget; for now

Within my window,

So,

By finger-tips,

I’ll draw into mine arms this dancing bough,

And stroke its silky buds across my lips.

O generous-natured, friendly, neighbor tree!

Weave gentle blessings in the shade and shine;

And granting gracious patience to my plea,

Some simple lesson of your lore make mine,

Make mine, I pray!

O, be a kindly teacher unto me,

And I’ll pour out such worshipful heart-wine,

Not any bird that sings to you all day,

Or nestles to low, leafy lullaby,

Shall hold you in such dear observance, nay,

Nor love you half so tenderly as I.

THE REDBIRD

Swept lightly by the south wind

The elm leaves softly stirred,

And in their pale green clusters

There straightway bloomed a bird!

His glossy feathers glistened

With dyes as richly red

As any tulip flaming

From out the garden bed.

But ah, unlike the tulips,

In joyous strain, ere long,

This redbird flower unfolded

A heart of golden song!

THE WISHING-SPRING

I knelt beside the fairy spring,

Among the tasseled weeds;

Far off, with dreamy murmuring,

The wind piped through the reeds.

Once, twice, the brimming cup I raised

With trembling finger-tips,

And in its limpid crystal gazed,

Nor laid it to my lips.

Ah me! the eager heart-desires,

So thronging swift they came,

My spirit surged like wind-swept fires,

I knew not which to name.

—Then all at once, I quickly quaffed

The shining drops; but lo,

The wish with that enchanted draught

No man must ever know!

APRIL MORNING

I lean upon the bridge’s rail,

In idle joy, and gazing down,

So watch the frothy bubbles sail,

And bits of tangled grasses trail

Along the current’s tawny brown.

The river flows at full to-day;

And though within the tide it pours

There grow no mocking sycamores,

Nor any crystal hints betray

The spicewood thickets, nor the pale

Soft willow wands of pearly gray,

Whose interwoven mazes veil

The fretted banks, yet here and there,

Adown some swirling eddy, where

A delving sunbeam shines,

What mines

Of gleaming, streaming, liquid gold

The waters hold!

And so, by rapid currents rolled

In billowy swells that break and chime

In riotous tumult uncontrolled,

The March flood plashes past the pier;

But through its sweeping tones, I hear

The sweet, receding murmurs rhyme

The burden of the April time;

And throbbing like a glad refrain,

Now far, now full, now far again,

The freshened breeze

Blows gaily, bringing pure and clear

The fitful, tinkling cadences.

But listen! faint, from out the sheer

Deep borders of the morning sky,

Slips down the distance-softened cry

Of shy wild geese that northward fly;

It vibrates nearer, and more near,

—And see!

There! wheeling into sight,

Far as the vision may descry.

A level-winged advancing “V,”

They keep their swift, unswerving flight.

North, north, beyond that scudding fleece

Of tiny clouds, like wilder geese,

That join their ranks, and journey, too,

On,—on,—into the farthest blue.

Then, from the boundless space above,

I drop my dazzled eyes to view

The soft field-grass and meadow-rue,

The restful, brown earth, that I love.

A trick of blinding sun, maybe,

That halo on the hills may prove—

And yet, they are so dear to me,

The golden glory that they wear

Is like none other anywhere,

And, in my heart, I hold it true.

Though, surely, what least loving eye

Could wander up the river there,

And see aught otherwise than I?

Or could deny

That yonder little glimpse is fair?

The slender point of jutting land

Where, faintly burgeoning anew

With rounds of downy buds, there stand

A score of water-willow trees

In clustered tufts, and twinkling through,

Across the stream, beside of these,

A line of shining yellow light;

And half in sight,

And hidden half, upon the right,

By wild red-sumac shrubberies,

A windmill, rising tall and white,

Slow turning in the breeze.

And then beyond—but how express,

What word in any tongue conveys

The depth of dreamy tenderness

That laps, and wraps, and overlays

The far blue hills,

And spills and fills

The valleys with pale purple haze?

O, what sweet syllables confess

The glad heart-happiness that plays

Through all my pulses as I gaze,

And drink the beauty, past all praise—

The old, immortal blessedness

Of April days!

ON HEARING THE BALLAD “ALLEN PERCY”

A plaintive song, so strangely sweet and old,

That all my soul within itself would fold

And gently keep so quaint a melody,

That like a bird’s its notes of liquid gold

Might oft repeat their sweetness unto me.

A tale of joyless splendor long ago,

Of wedded lady and of loveless woe,

How she to soothe her sick heart’s misery

Cradled in vines her little child, and so

Sang of dear love beneath a greenwood tree.

And through it all there runs such saddest plaint,

As sweet as lutes, now murmurous, now faint,

Till, like the far-heard sighing of the sea,

It sweeps in gathering passion past restraint,

Then breaks, and croons in mournful minor key.

Ah, well-a-day! I listen breathless till

I half believe that sorrowing singer still

Dreams on divinely by the whispering tree;

For in your voice all tenderest heart-strings thrill,

And all the woodland’s marvelous minstrelsy!

MY LITTLE MASTER

O little poet, winging through

The sheer, clear blue,

Is it the sky you’re singing to?

Or is it that afar you see

Some leafy, laden apple-tree,

And half concealed and half confessed,

A nest?

Ah, truly now, I would I knew

The happy secret of your glee,

That joy wherewith you birds are blest,

Red-breast!

So airy and so light of wing,

You soar and sing,

I pray, could you not softly fling,

My merry minstrel, down to me

Some echo of that melody

That spills from out your tiny bill?

Some trill

Of all those liquid tones that ring

So full of purest poetry,

That rhyme, and chime, and thrill, until

They fill

These vibrant seas of azure air,

Whose blue tides bear

Their witching sweetness everywhere?

O little master, heed to me!

And ah, so true, so tenderly,

I’ll learn to sing how lovely grows

This rose,

Till, by and by, dear heart, I’ll dare

To touch some bolder note, maybe,

Some chord whence deeper music flows;

Who knows?

THE NORTHMEN’S SONG OF THE POLE

The roar of the seas where the freezing clouds lower,

The shriek of the storm-wind, the turbulent tide,

The conquering currents, all vaunt of their power,

And taunt with the centuries’ secret they hide.

Of towering icebergs and glittering floes,

The sun of the midnight in luminous rings,

Of hopes held at bay by beleaguering snows,

Of man in his weakness the fierce ocean sings.

Bright over the sky the aurora is red,

And crimson as life-blood the snowflakes below;

Swift updarting streamers of fire overspread

All heaven and earth with a roseate glow.

Hark! Hark! to the rumble, the thunderous roar

Of the ancient ice-mountains that shatter and rend

And crash with the tide dashing up on the shore,

In turmoil titanic and toil without end.

O, woe to the ship that the pitiless clutch

Of those crushing ice-demons drags down to her doom!

The path to the pole is o’er-scattered with such,

And deep sleep the heroes the tempests entomb.

Beneath the wan moon of the long arctic night

The frost-smitten sea stretches boundless and lone;

The Shores of the Dead Men loom spectral and white,

In Helheim, the death-goddess waits for her own.

But ho, to her hatred! the soul of the brave

He bears not who dares not her fury defy!

And ho, to her giants of wind and of wave!

We crave but to meet and defeat them, or die!

Farewell, and farewell!—the anchor rope strains,

Loose cable and canvas, and hasten we forth!

The fire of desire quivers hot in our veins,

We must sail with the gale, to the north! to the north!

Must speed with the blast to its ultimate goal,

The path of its pinions must follow and find

The lure of the ages, the boreal pole,

And the measureless halls of the house of the wind!

IN THE MISSION GARDEN, SAN GABRIEL

O golden day, wherein at last,

Long leagues and wintry overpast,

I stand beneath a sky as blue

As April violets drenched in dew,

And live within a dream come true!

From rosy-berried pepper-trees

The winds blow spicy fragrances;

The palms sway softly to and fro,

And down below,

Between the glossy leaves of these,

The sparkling, yellow sunbeams steep

The mission garden, where the bees

Are hoarding deep

Of heliotrope that hangs the wall

As for some princely festival,

While white and tall

Bright lilies bloom in grace untold,

And those rare roses, passing all

In splendor, called “The Cloth of Gold!”

O heart, my heart, throb high and fast

With rapture! for how couldst thou know

Amid the far-off frost and snow

Where all the skies are overcast

And shrill and chill the north-winds blow,

How couldst thou know

December heavens anywhere

Could show such rare

Such tender and divinest guise,

That earth and air

Could weave such strange, resistless spell

As this that folds us flower-wise

At sweet San Gabriel!

San Gabriel! the holy words

Fall soft as music on the ear;

I think they are as sweet to hear

As any song of summer birds;

And harkening them, the while in clear,

Pure, quivering notes,

The ancient bells begin to chime,

In shadowy-wise before me floats

A vision of the vanished time.

I see again

The little band from sunny Spain,

Those godly ones, and full of grace,

And without stain,

Who, heeding neither toil nor pain,

Desiring men of every race,

That such might see sweet Jesus’ face,

And that at length the Lord might reign

Among all peoples, even so,

Sought in the wilderness this place,

And consecrated, long ago.

And gazing on the sacred pile

Their hands upreared in loving zeal,

My heart goes forth to them the while,

Those faithful fathers, true and leal!

How oft along each cloistered aisle

They counted o’er and o’er their beads,

While in this garden, unawares,

The fragrant flowers sowed their seeds.

—And richly as the flowers, the prayers

Bore fruit in gentle deeds!

In arched embrasures, lifted high

Against the sky,

The bells in clear-cut beauty show;

And loftier still, surmounting all,

And blessing thus the ancient wall,

A cross,—and on its summit, lo!

A slender bird with pearly breast

Sits peacefully at rest!

Ah me! Ah me! I know not why

This little bird with folded wings,

The cross, the tender azure sky,

Their pure, exceeding beauty brings

Swift tears, and smites my heart, till I

Am almost fain

To hide mine eyes for very pain!

Yet though thus for a little space

I bow my face,

Nor any grace

Of rose or lily can I see,

I know the while that memory,

Clear-eyed and free,

Upon my heart is graving deep

Each least, sweet loveliness, to keep

Through all the coming years for me.

And it shall be,

In afterwhiles, when far away,

When wintry skies are bleak and gray

And no birds sing,

I shall grow glad remembering

The sweetness of this scarlet day.

DREAM ECHOES

A little while ago I caught,

In cadence pure and clear,

A waft of faintest music, wrought

Upon my inner ear.

A part of some elusive theme

Whose sweetly solemn air

My soul had harkened in a dream,

I know not when nor where.

I only know my heart-strings stirred

With strange, forgotten pain,

That crept upon me as I heard

That unremembered strain.

A sense of loneliness untold,

So boundless, deep, unknown,

I blindly reached my hands to hold

Your palms within my own!

APRIL CONTRADICTIONS

I watch the little pear buds break

And slip their silky sheaths,

And flowers on the maples make

A thousand russet wreaths,

—Then something blinds my sight, and I

Am full of grief, yet know not why!

A rosy purple half betrays

The wealth the lilacs fold;

The torches of the tulips blaze

In flames of red and gold;

Peach boughs are blossoming above,

—But oh, the vague heartache thereof!

The blue sky wears in gentle wise

Its loveliness again;

All April sunshine,—yet mine eyes

Are brimmed with April rain!

The presage of sweet days to be,

So strange a sadness stirs in me!

A PLEA

Two years ago, it is two years to-day,—

It seems a score!—since that sweet, bloomy May

When on the barren sea you sailed away.

The peach-trees then were in a rosy glow,

And down below,

The tulip buds had just begun to show.

—And yet, dear heart, I know

Though all the heaven smiled in tender blue,

It shone not so to you.

Sorrow had hooded all your skies in gray,

And when these dancing boughs put on their gay,

Bright May-time bravery, they only grieved

A heart bereaved.

And though glad robins sang to you to stay,

And by the stream the first sweet-flags unfurled

Seemed nature’s truce to sorrow,—every way

Held warring memories wherewith to gainsay

And send you wandering over half the world.

Ah, well do I remember how my prayers

Went with you, dear, and followed unawares;

So speeding ever, winging far and wide

About the path wherein your ship should ride,

And pleading Heaven that most gentle airs

And tempered tide

Might bear you safely to the farther side.

Then, when I knew your voyage over,—then,

—For surely now, at last, I may confess,

Now that I have outgrown its bitterness,

Though, sometimes, I can almost feel again,

Remembering those days, that keen distress,

Yes, jealousy it was! not any less,

That constantly

Wrapped all my thoughts of you beyond the sea!—

I feared lest other lives, more large and wide

Than mine has been, might, day by day, divide

And win your life and love away from me.

And I was fearful for dear nature, too;

I could not bear

To think that heaven anywhere should wear

A hue more deeply, more divinely blue

Than this home sky that we together knew;

Or that there grew

Strange bud or bloom to make the earth more fair.

—A most unworthy fancy, it is true;

Since nature is but nature everywhere,

The same kind mother, in whatever land;

So too, maybe, could we but understand,

All hearts and loves are only as a part

Of one great Heart

Whose universal pulses so expand

That any lesser life that therein beats

Should no more dream of this word “jealousy”

Than yonder shining flakes of bloom should be

Jealous, forsooth, of the whole hawthorn tree

That is but one with their own mass of sweets.

And so, at last, through blind, unreasoning grief

Beyond belief,

Brightly within my heart there did uprise

Love’s loyalty, rebuking in this wise:

“Has she not spoken, oft and oft again,

These three plain words ‘I love you’? Wherefore, then,

What right have you

To deem mere distance could her love undo?

To fancy aught exists that could estrange

Her heart from yours, wherein there is no change,

Or judge her own to be less simply true?”

And then, in shame, I swiftly put aside

All faintest questioning; thenceforth to abide

In trust as pure, as boundless, and as wide

As still sea-deeps, unvexed of any tide.

Nay, I have learned to cherish rightly, too,

All light and life that minister to you.

I hold most dear

Whatever least thing brings you smallest cheer;

And, day by day, my ceaseless prayer is this,

That from the changeful, many-colored grace

Of time and place,

Your grief may come to weave a chrysalis

Round its dead hopes, till waking, by and by,

It shall find wings to bear it to the sky.

—But, dear,—God knows I would not do you wrong,

Nor touch one heart-string if it be not strong,—

But O, so long,

So long it seems! You have been gone so long!

The feather-grass is growing green and high,

And, piping gaily in an azure throng,

The bluebirds spangle all the air with song;

Again aflame the rosy peach boughs burn;

—Can not you, too, return?

On slender stems the nodding wind-flowers blow,

And bloodroots grow

Where high the hedges fling their lacing frets

Along the lanes; while, softly sifting through

Tall plumy weeds and silver spider-nets,

The yellow sunbeams filter down below

Until I know

Not any fair Italian sky is blue

As is our earth to-day with violets!

Nor do I think that even that Syrian sun

You watched ride high above Damascus’ towers,

In purer light or richer splendor glowed

Than any one

Of these most lovely golden dawns of ours

That wake the birds along the river road.

The green ravines are newly fringed with fern;

From out the brake a robin red-breast calls;

The stream repeats, at rippling intervals,

“Can you not now return?”

But what avail in striving to compare

Earth’s endless beauties, whether east or west!

All lands are lovely, and I am aware

That unto me this little spot seems fair,

More rare

Than all the gathered glories of the rest,

Because I love it best.

And so, in truth, I feel that chief I plead

A selfish need;

I too, like nature, long to greet the spring!

Indeed I think I never have confessed,

Nor have you guessed

How much of May it is your gift to bring.

You never knew how wintry was the cloud

Of haunting sadness, that would ofttimes shroud

My inmost being, and creep up to chill

The warmer currents of my life,—until,

In knowing you,

I felt a pulse like that sweet, joyous thrill

That breaks the buds when all the skies are blue!

The bitter storms of grief I did not fear

When you were near.

But sometimes now I have grown half afraid

That unforgotten frost of pain that used

To wrap my nature will again invade

The singing streams your April touch had loosed.

Spring’s subtler spells alone I can not learn,

—Ah, will you not return?

Yet if it chance that prayed-for peace you sought

Be not at length to full perfection wrought,

If still in vain

Time strives with memory,—then, dear, I would fain

Let be as naught

All I have uttered; and I will refrain

From any whispered wish, or word, or thought,

That might to you in anywise complain.

However much my eager heart may miss,

How much for you my very soul may yearn,

I will seek patience, confident in this,

That some time, surely, Love shall conquer pain,

And then, dear heart, I know you will return.

SEA-DREAMS

I sat upon the mossy rocks

Beside the southern sea,

While overhead the summer clouds

Were drifting lazily.

I watched their purple shadows trail

Across the sea and hide

Within the hollows of the waves

That rode the rising tide.

Sometimes the little flakes of foam

Dashed up in twinkling spray;

And out along their silver paths

The ships sailed far away.

As through the sun I followed them

With straining, eager eyes,

From out the sparkling waves I saw

A shining vision rise.

It seemed a ghostly castle white,

With battlement and tower,

That hung on the horizon’s verge

By some unearthly power.

I saw its spectral turrets gleam

As white as ivory,

And wondered who the wizard king

That reigned upon the sea.

—But while, with breathless gaze, I watched

This castle, by and by

It vanished in the underworld

Beyond the sea and sky!

IDEALS

I would that I could weave a song

As airy and as light,

As are the roundelays that throng

Within my heart to-night.

I would that I might set to tune

The beauty of this hour,

When, like a primrose bud, the moon

Breaks into golden flower.

And all the happy, lilting notes,

Beyond divinest words,

That nestle in the downy throats

Of little sleeping birds,

The breeze-borne scent of mignonette,

That in the garden grows,

Where, strung like pearls, the dew is wet

Upon the briar-rose,

These things it is, whose voices I

Have sought for overlong;

Yet still their cunning tones defy

The artifice of song.

TO THE “WINGED VICTORY OF
SAMOTHRACE”

Thou wonder of the warrior prow,

Supreme, immortal Victory!

Before thy majesty I bow

And all my soul flames forth to thee!

Within the shadow of thy wings

A thousand voices sound for me;

In far, tumultuous murmurings,

I catch the echo of the sea;

The salty surge that rolls more near,

Till loud and clear

In mighty thunder tones I hear

The rush of old Ægean tides,

The bright, white waves that from the shore

Sweep seaward with unceasing roar;

In dawning skies the day-star guides,

Across the surf the seabirds call,

Whilst white and tall

With swift sails swelling over all,

The shield-hung warship rides.

And like the heaven-born dreams that soar

From hero spirits, eagle-wise,

And urge to deeds of great emprise

And fly before

The eager, throbbing hearts that know

No goal but victory, even so,

Above the restless breakers’ roar,

Upon the high cliff evermore

Thou standest with bright wings outspread,

In all thy fresh-wrought godlihead,

Beloved of the conqueror!

And as I gaze I seem to trace

The features of thy fearless face,

The matchless marvel of its grace

That like a star

Across the seas of Samothrace

Shone forth afar;

I hear the southern winds intone

Whilst backward blown

Thy trailing garments, fluttering

From out the slender girdle, cling

About thy limbs and so confess

Their lines of perfect loveliness;

Then suddenly o’er everything

Great shouts and martial echoes ring!

I see thee, storm-like, rushing past

Thy hand upon the carven mast,

And harken whilst thy proud lips fling

The loud, triumphal trumpet blast!

O glorious image! what if time

Hath smitten with ungentle touch

Thy perfect beauty? Still sublime

Thou art a conqueror, and still

All men unite to name thee such!

Before thee all my pulses thrill,

Old hopes and dreams awake in me;

O Victory,

Lead, lead but thou mine eager will,

I follow fast and far until

Some day my ship shall harbor thee!

AS TO THE SUMMER AIR THE ROSE

As to the summer air the rose

Pours forth her perfume all the day,

For every careless wind that blows

To scatter far away,

So gives my heart to thee the rare

Fine fragrance of its sweetest thought,

And thou art heedless as the air

Whereto the rose is naught!

A WOOD FANCY

The mandrakes lift, like little mosques,

Their domes between the vines,

And butterflies for worshipers

Are flocking to their shrines.

And from tall, tapering mullein towers

And minarets of green,

The honey-bee muezzins drone

To bloodroot buds between,

That pilgrim-wise along the road

Come trooping to the light,

In pale green caftans closely wound

And turbans spotless white.

While all the way with budding things

Is tufted thicker than

The praying mats the Persian weaves

In streets of Ispahan.

And listen! with a lordly note

Like joyous burst of drums,

In gorgeous gown of gold and black

The oriole sultan comes!

THE THRUSH

The creamy dogwood branches,

The rosy redbud trees,

The drifts of sweet wild-plum bloom

O’erhung by honey bees,

The gleaming buckeye blossoms

The south wind blew apart,

Oh, all the woods awaking,

They overfilled my heart!

Then clear, from out a thicket,

There rang that golden note

That flutes from none but only

The tawny thrush’s throat;

So charged with all sweet secrets

The April has to tell,

I bowed my head and harkened,

Enchanted by its spell.

Till presently that magic

Heart-melting melody

Drew all my soul to meet it

In sudden ecstasy.

My spirit found its pinions

In blessed bird-like birth,

And knew the joyous passion

That thrilled through all the earth.

The while the thrush was singing,

I heard the violets stir,

And through the dreamy woodlands

The breaking buds confer;

I half divined the glories

Of all the springs to be,

—When, O, the song was silent!

The thrush had flown, ah me!

MONTEZUMA

On a lofty mountain summit

In a tawny, desert land,

Lo, a mighty human profile,

But not hewn by human hand;

In the living rock forever

Looming dark, majestic, grand.

O’er its outline, heaven fronting,

When the dawn’s first radiance streams

With its rosy touch, and tender,

Then this face of granite seems

As a sleeper’s unawakened

From the thrall of peaceful dreams.

But when down the western heavens

Sinks the setting sun, blood-red,

Then the mountain mists that mantle

Cover close that quiet head,

As men draw a pall of purple

Round about their kingly dead.

And the stars, like lighted tapers,

Flicker forth in golden rows

From the heaven’s holy altar,

Whilst the night-wind as it blows

Seems to chant a solemn requiem

For the passing soul’s repose.

Head of royal Montezuma,

So the ancient legends tell;

Montezuma, granite shrouded

By some great enchanter’s spell,

Lying lordly by the borders

Of the land he loved so well.

But in silence unrevealing

Still that calm face fronts the sky;

Heeding neither tears nor laughter,

Nor if sun or storm go by;

Keeping still its primal counsel,

In repose, serene and high.

BETWEEN SEASONS

The cherry trees are haunted

By hordes of robber jays,

And warmer winds are fanning

The poppies to a blaze.

And loosed in fitful flurries,

The sweet syringas fall,

To lie like little snow-drifts

Against the garden wall.

Upon the laden lattice,

In softly rounding shapes,

A wealth of tiny clusters

Are growing into grapes.

Heigho! a drowsy shimmer

Enfolds the sunny hours;

And humming-birds are hidden

In scarlet trumpet-flowers.

The tenderness of springtime

Is almost overpast;

But O, the gracious summer,

It comes, it comes at last!

A LITTLE LOVE SONG

My heart was like a sunless, cold,

Unlovely land of ice and snow,

Wherein no blessed buds unfold,

Nor singing waters flow.

Then all at once the April skies

Laughed in your look, and at that hour

My spirit melted, torrent-wise,

My life broke into flower!

O dearest heart, I had not guessed

What marvel of immortal seeds

Lay hidden deep within my breast,

Beneath its barren weeds!

But now I know, but now I know

The glory of the flower of love,

The joyous splendor of its glow,

The subtile pain thereof!

JUNE

High overhead,

By summer breezes sped,

From every latest burgeoned bough

The last, spring petals fall;

And red, red, red,

Along the garden bed,

The poppy plants are holding now

Their crimson carnival.

Clear, sweet, and strong,

I hear the robin’s song,

And catch the merry caroling

Of some bold bobolink;

And phlox flowers throng

The garden ways along,

While peonies and roses bring

Their pageantries of pink.

White, gold, and green,

The lily spires are seen,

And hollyhocks, in stately rows,

With tufted buds are set;

Tall, in between,

The growing sunflowers lean,

And thick the sweet alyssum shows

Among the mignonette.

Ho! truant May!

Have you, then, gone astray,

Unwitting that in realms of June

Return were no avail?

Ah, well-a-day!

So wings the spring away;

The summer’s ever oversoon,

But June, sweet June, all hail!

A SONG OF THOUGHT

O, the ships have sails for the swelling gales,

The falcon flies in the wake of the wind,

In the speed of the steed of the Bedouin breed

The blood leaps high to the hoof-beats’ lead,

As the leagues are left behind.

But what care I

For the birds that fly,

Or all the vessels that sail the sea;

The blasts that blow

Till the trees bend low,

Or the barbs of Araby!

I spring to birth with the dust of earth,

Yet span the heaven from pole to pole;

Or flashing far as the farthermost star,

I know no barrier, bound nor bar

To hold from my boldest goal.

The storm’s red spark

As it cleaves the dark,

With my viewless wings it can not keep pace;

More fleet than light

My measureless flight

To the starless ends of space!

IN THE MOONLIGHT

The moonbeams filter softly through

The leaves upon the linden tree;

And as I sit alone, dear heart,

My spirit yearns for thee!

Yet in some gracious-wise to-night

We do not seem far worlds apart;

I reach my empty arms and dream

I fold thee to my heart.

I close my brimming eyes, and see

The strange, sweet beauty of thy smile,

And fancy that our palms are met

In loving clasp the while.

In soft, clear tones, I seem to hear

The long-hushed voice I loved so well;

—I tremble, lest a breath should break

This moment’s happy spell!

O brother mine, could it be true

Thine own dear presence hovers near

To comfort with this heavenly peace

Thy little sister here?

BINDWEED

Along the lane I idly pass

Unheeding where the footpath goes,

And loiter through the ripe wild-grass

That down the open roadway grows

In feathery, tall tufts that rise

In filmy tangles, misty-wise;

The grass that when the south wind blows,

Shines out and shows

Shot through with silver lights and rose,

And tiny gold and violet seeds

That quiver off each gleaming stem

And powder all the wayside weeds,

And like a glory cover them.

With eager palms I gently press

Soft sheaves of it against my lips

In sheer delight; and so caress

And fondle with light finger-tips,

And watch its beauty when the bright,

Clear spears of light

Pierce through its slender leaves and smite

Their rose and purple, till my sight

Is dazzled with its loveliness!

In verdant nets along the way

The tendrils of a wild-grape vine

Through elder thickets intertwine;

And poising lightly on a spray

Of fruited bramble stems where shine

Close clustering berries, red as wine,

A little thistle-bird, still gay

In April’s yellow plumage, clings

With airy grace, and slowly swings,

And lifts his wings

In dainty, drowsy flutterings;

They flicker like bright flakes of gold,

And fan his body, small and slim,

While lovingly the winds enfold

And summer’s heart broods over him.

The sky is softer than the blue

Of cornflower buds beneath the dew;

And down below

Upon the marshy meadow swales

The bindweed weaves its rosy veils

Where thick the blowing rushes grow

Among the tasseled reeds and rue;

And up between the mossy rails

It lightly climbs, and clambers through

The growing corn, and barley, too,

And winds the fallow weeds and trails

Along the creek where cowslips grew.

O lavish stems, that fondly fling

Close clasp about the earth, and cling

In wreaths of fragrant flowering,

Ev’n as ye do

To that dear soil wherefrom ye spring,

So does my love cleave thereunto!

And so my full heart-blossoms bind

The bright midsummer fields, and find

Sweet fellowships with everything!

THE SUMMER SHOWER

The air is shot with spangling drops,

But heedless of the rain

The sun laughs, through a silver veil,

Upon the golden grain.

And lightly arching up the east

In faintly penciled lines,

That throb and flush to tinted bars,

A double rainbow shines.

It seems to touch the fragrant earth,

Till, tangled in the breeze,

It winds a film of irised light

About the distant trees.

In frothy clusters down the road

The blooming elders lean,

With dripping buds that shine like pearls

Within a sea of green.

And heaped around them, pink as shells,

The roses are in flower,

While earth and sky are freshly keyed

To sweetness by the shower.

AT NIGHT

Come, draw more near! Clasp hands with me!

Ah close, and closer still!

The night spreads to infinity!

And through my heart a sudden chill,