A Boys Will | Page 7

outside;?And the sweet pang it cost me not to call?And tell you that I saw does still abide.?But 'tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,?For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.
In Neglect
THEY leave us so to the way we took,?As two in whom they were proved mistaken,?That we sit sometimes in the wayside nook,?With mischievous, vagrant, seraphic look,?And try if we cannot feel forsaken.
The Vantage Point
IF tired of trees I seek again mankind,?Well I know where to hie me--in the dawn,?To a slope where the cattle keep the lawn.?There amid lolling juniper reclined,?Myself unseen, I see in white defined?Far off the homes of men, and farther still,?The graves of men on an opposing hill,?Living or dead, whichever are to mind.?And if by moon I have too much of these,?I have but to turn on my arm, and lo,?The sun-burned hillside sets my face aglow,?My breathing shakes the bluet like a breeze,?I smell the earth, I smell the bruis��d plant,?I look into the crater of the ant.
Mowing
THERE was never a sound beside the wood but one,?And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.?What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;?Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,?Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound--?And that was why it whispered and did not speak.?It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,?Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:?Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,?Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers?(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.?The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.?My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.
Going for Water
THE well was dry beside the door,?And so we went with pail and can?Across the fields behind the house?To seek the brook if still it ran;?Not loth to have excuse to go,?Because the autumn eve was fair?(Though chill), because the fields were ours,?And by the brook our woods were there.?We ran as if to meet the moon?That slowly dawned behind the trees,?The barren boughs without the leaves,?Without the birds, without the breeze.?But once within the wood, we paused?Like gnomes that hid us from the moon,?Ready to run to hiding new?With laughter when she found us soon.?Each laid on other a staying hand?To listen ere we dared to look,?And in the hush we joined to make?We heard, we knew we heard the brook.?A note as from a single place,?A slender tinkling fall that made?Now drops that floated on the pool?Like pearls, and now a silver blade.
Revelation
WE make ourselves a place apart?Behind light words that tease and flout,?But oh, the agitated heart?Till someone find us really out.?'Tis pity if the case require?(Or so we say) that in the end?We speak the literal to inspire?The understanding of a friend.?But so with all, from babes that play?At hide-and-seek to God afar,?So all who hide too well away?Must speak and tell us where they are.
The Trial by Existence
EVEN the bravest that are slain?Shall not dissemble their surprise?On waking to find valor reign,?Even as on earth, in paradise;?And where they sought without the sword?Wide fields of asphodel fore'er,?To find that the utmost reward?Of daring should be still to dare.?The light of heaven falls whole and white?And is not shattered into dyes,?The light for ever is morning light;?The hills are verdured pasture-wise;?The angel hosts with freshness go,?And seek with laughter what to brave;--?And binding all is the hushed snow?Of the far-distant breaking wave.?And from a cliff-top is proclaimed?The gathering of the souls for birth,?The trial by existence named,?The obscuration upon earth.?And the slant spirits trooping by?In streams and cross- and counter-streams?Can but give ear to that sweet cry?For its suggestion of what dreams!?And the more loitering are turned?To view once more the sacrifice?Of those who for some good discerned?Will gladly give up paradise.?And a white shimmering concourse rolls?Toward the throne to witness there?The speeding of devoted souls?Which God makes his especial care.?And none are taken but who will,?Having first heard the life read out?That opens earthward, good and ill,?Beyond the shadow of a doubt;?And very beautifully God limns,?And tenderly, life's little dream,?But naught extenuates or dims,?Setting the thing that is supreme.?Nor is there wanting in the press?Some spirit to stand simply forth,?Heroic in its nakedness,?Against the uttermost of earth.?The tale of earth's unhonored things?Sounds nobler there than 'neath the sun;?And the mind whirls and the heart sings,?And a shout greets the daring one.?But always God speaks at the end:?'One thought in agony of strife?The bravest would have by for friend,?The memory that he chose the life;?But the pure fate to which you go?Admits no memory of choice,?Or the woe were not earthly woe?To which you give the assenting voice.'?And so the choice must be again,?But the last choice is