Fires of Driftwood | Page 8

come to Nazareth?And swift the Summer hurrieth."?Sing low, the barley and the corn!
Across the field a path is set--?Sing, sweet Mary,?Green shadow in a golden net--?The tears of night have left it wet.?Sing low, the barley and the corn!
The Babe forsakes His mother's knee,?Haste, sweet Mary--?See how He runneth merrily,?One foot upon the path hath He--?Green, green, the barley and the corn!
The mother calls with mother-fear--?Hush, sweet Mary!?Another sound is in His ear,?A sound he cannot choose but hear--?Hush, hush, the barley and the corn!
Far and still far--through years yet dim?List, sweet Mary!?From o'er the waking earth's green rim?Another Springtime calleth Him!?Bend low, the barley and the corn!
Call low, call high, and call again,?Ah, poor Mary!?Know, by thy heart's prophetic pain,?That one day thou shalt call in vain--?Moan, moan, the barley and the corn!
O mother! make thine arms a shield,?Sing, sweet Mary!?While love still holds what love must yield?Hide well the path across the field!--?Sing low, the barley and the corn!
. . . . .
"The Spring is come!" a shepherd saith;?Rest thee, Mary--?The passing years are but a breath?And Spring still comes to Nazareth--?Green, green, the barley and the corn!
Inheritance
THERE lived a man who raised his hand and said,?"I will be great!"?And through a long, long life he bravely knocked?At Fame's closed gate.
A son he left who, like his sire, strove?High place to win;--?Worn out, he died and, dying, left no trace?That he had been.
He also left a son, who, without care?Or planning how,?Bore the fair letters of a deathless fame?Upon his brow.
"Behold a genius, filled with fire divine!"?The people cried;?Not knowing that to make him what he was?Two men had died.
Song of the Sleeper
SLEEPER rest quietly?Deep underground!?Lord of your kingdom?Of murmurous sound.?Hear the grass growing?Sweet for the mowing;?Hear the stars sing?As they travel around--?Grass blade and star dust,?You, I, and all of us,?One with the cause of us,?Deep underground!
Murmur not, sleeper!?Yours is the key?To all things that were and?To all things that be--?While the lark's trilling,?While the grain's filling,?Laugh with the wind?At Life's Riddle-me-ree!?How you were born of it??Why was the thorn of it??Where the new morn of it??Yours is the Key!
Sleep deeper, brother!?Sleep and forget?Red lips that trembled?Eyes that were wet--?Though love be weeping,?Turn to your sleeping,?Life has no giving?That death need regret.?Here at the end of all?Hear the Beginning call,?Life's but death's seneschal--?Sleep and forget!
The Tyrant
ONE comes with foot insistent to my door,?Calling my name;?Nor voice nor footstep have I heard before,?Yet clear the calling sounds and o'er and o'er--?It seems the sunlight burns along the floor?With paler flame!
"'Tis vain to call with morning on the wing,?With noon so near,?With Life a dancer in the masque of Spring?And Youth new wedded with a golden ring--?When falls the night and birds have ceased to sing?My heart may hear!
"'Tis vain to pause. Pass, friend, upon your way!?I may not heed;?Too swift the hours; too sweet, too brief the day:?Only one life, one spring, one perfect May--?I crush each moment, with its sweets to stay?Life's joyous greed!
"Call not again! The wind is roaming by?Across the heath--?The Wind's a tell-tale and will bear your sigh?To dim the smiling gladness of the sky?Or kill the spring's first violets that lie?In purple sheath--
"If you must call, call low! My heart grows still,?Still as my breath,?Still as your smile, O Ancient One! A chill?Strikes through the sun upon the window-sill--?I know you now--I follow where you will,?O tyrant Death!"
The Gifts
I GIVE you Life, O child, a garden fair;?I give you Love, a rose that blossoms there--?I give a day to pluck it and to wear!
I give you Death, O child--a boon more great--?That, when your Rose has withered and 'tis late,?You may pass out and, smiling, close the gate!
The Town Between
A WALL impregnable surrounds?The Town wherein I dwell;?No man may scale it and it has?Two gates that guard it well.
One opened long ago, and I?A vagrant soul, slipped through,?Bewildered and forgetting all?The wider world I knew.
I love the Town, the narrow ways,?The common, yellow sun,?The handclasp and the jesting and?The work that must be done!
I shun the other gate that stands?Beyond the crowded mart--?I need but glance that way to feel?Cold fingers on my heart!
It stands alone and somberly?Within a shaded place,?And every man who turns that way?Has quiet on his face.
And every man must rise and leave?His pleasant homely door?To vanish through this silent gate?And enter in no more--
Yet--once--I saw its opening throw?A brighter light about?And glimpsed strange glory on the brow?Of someone passing out!
I wonder if Outside may be?One fair and great demesne?Where both gates open, careless of?The Town that lies between?
On the Mountain
THE top of the world and an empty morning,?Mist sweeping in from the dim Outside,?The door of day just a little bit open--?The wind's great laugh as he flings it wide!
O wind, here's one who would travel with you?To