Fires of Driftwood | Page 8

smiles! Ah, Mary! could I know
The source of that glad
smile--what would I know?
I dare not dream, save that the mystery

Is not yet given . . . one day I may know!
A Christmas Child
SHE came to me at Christmas time and made me mother, and it seemed
There was a Christ indeed and He had given me the joy I'd dreamed.
She nestled to me, and I kept her near and warm, surprised to find The
arms that held my babe so close were opened wider to her kind.
I hid her safe within my heart. "My heart" I said, "is all for you," But lo!
She left the door ajar and all the world came flocking through.
She needed me. I learned to know the royal joy that service brings, She
was so helpless that I grew to love all little helpless things.
She trusted me, and I who ne'er had trusted, save in self, grew cold
With panic lest this precious life should know no stronger, surer hold.
She lay and smiled and in her eyes I watched my narrow world grow
broad, Within her tiny, crumpled hand I touched the mighty hand of
God!
Spring in Nazareth
"THE Spring is come!" a shepherd saith;
Sing, sweet Mary,
"The
Spring is 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