Dome of Many-Coloured Glass | Page 6

Sirrah! move back, there is scarce room to ride."
"Good Sirs, Kind Sirs," begged the crestfallen fool,?"I pray of your courtesy speech with you,?I'm for yonder town, and have no horse to ride,?Have you never a charger will carry two?"
Then the company halted and laughed out loud.?"Was such a request ever made to a knight?"?"And where are your legs," asked one, "if you start,?You may be inside the town gates to-night."
"'T is a lazy fellow, let him alone,?They've no room in the town for such idlers as he."?But one bent from his saddle and said, "My man,?Art thou not ashamed to beg charity!
"Thou art well set up, and thy legs are strong,?But it much misgives me lest thou'rt a fool;?For beggars get only a beggar's crust,?Wise men are reared in a different school."
Then they clattered away in the dust and the wind,?And the fool slunk back to his lonely stone;?He began to see that the man who asks?Must likewise give and not ask alone.
Purple tree-shadows crept over the road,?The level sun flung an orange light,?And the fool laid his head on the hard, gray stone?And wept as he realized advancing night.
A great, round moon rose over a hill?And the steady wind blew yet more cool;?And crouched on a stone a wayfarer sobbed,?For at last he knew he was only a fool.
The Green Bowl
This little bowl is like a mossy pool?In a Spring wood, where dogtooth violets grow?Nodding in chequered sunshine of the trees;?A quiet place, still, with the sound of birds,?Where, though unseen, is heard the endless song?And murmur of the never resting sea.?'T was winter, Roger, when you made this cup,?But coming Spring guided your eager hand?And round the edge you fashioned young green leaves,?A proper chalice made to hold the shy?And little flowers of the woods. And here?They will forget their sad uprooting, lost?In pleasure that this circle of bright leaves?Should be their setting; once more they will dream?They hear winds wandering through lofty trees?And see the sun smiling between the leaves.
Hora Stellatrix
The stars hang thick in the apple tree,?The south wind smells of the pungent sea,?Gold tulip cups are heavy with dew.?The night's for you, Sweetheart, for you!?Starfire rains from the vaulted blue.
Listen! The dancing of unseen leaves.?A drowsy swallow stirs in the eaves.?Only a maiden is sorrowing.?'T is night and spring, Sweetheart, and spring!?Starfire lights your heart's blossoming.
In the intimate dark there's never an ear,?Though the tulips stand on tiptoe to hear,?So give; ripe fruit must shrivel or fall.?As you are mine, Sweetheart, give all!?Starfire sparkles, your coronal.
Fragment
What is poetry? Is it a mosaic?Of coloured stones which curiously are wrought?Into a pattern? Rather glass that's taught?By patient labor any hue to take?And glowing with a sumptuous splendor, make?Beauty a thing of awe; where sunbeams caught,?Transmuted fall in sheafs of rainbows fraught?With storied meaning for religion's sake.
Loon Point
Softly the water ripples?Against the canoe's curving side,?Softly the birch trees rustle?Flinging over us branches wide.
Softly the moon glints and glistens?As the water takes and leaves,?Like golden ears of corn?Which fall from loose-bound sheaves,
Or like the snow-white petals?Which drop from an overblown rose,?When Summer ripens to Autumn?And the freighted year must close.
From the shore come the scents of a garden,?And between a gap in the trees?A proud white statue glimmers?In cold, disdainful ease.
The child of a southern people,?The thought of an alien race,?What does she in this pale, northern garden,?How reconcile it with her grace?
But the moon in her wayward beauty?Is ever and always the same,?As lovely as when upon Latmos?She watched till Endymion came.
Through the water the moon writes her legends?In light, on the smooth, wet sand;?They endure for a moment, and vanish,?And no one may understand.
All round us the secret of Nature?Is telling itself to our sight,?We may guess at her meaning but never?Can know the full mystery of night.
But her power of enchantment is on us,?We bow to the spell which she weaves,?Made up of the murmur of waves?And the manifold whisper of leaves.
Summer
Some men there are who find in nature all?Their inspiration, hers the sympathy?Which spurs them on to any great endeavor,?To them the fields and woods are closest friends,?And they hold dear communion with the hills;?The voice of waters soothes them with its fall,?And the great winds bring healing in their sound.?To them a city is a prison house?Where pent up human forces labour and strive,?Where beauty dwells not, driven forth by man;?But where in winter they must live until?Summer gives back the spaces of the hills.?To me it is not so. I love the earth?And all the gifts of her so lavish hand:?Sunshine and flowers, rivers and rushing winds,?Thick branches swaying in a winter storm,?And moonlight playing in a boat's wide wake;?But more than these, and much, ah, how much more,?I love the very human heart of man.?Above me spreads the hot, blue mid-day sky,?Far