Fires of Driftwood | Page 9

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 the far bourne you
alone may know--
There would I seek what some one is hiding,

There would I find where my longings go!
To some deep calm would I drift and nestle
Close to the heart of the
Great Surprise.
O strong wind, do you laugh to see us?
We are so
little and oh, so wise!
The Prophet
HE trod upon the heights; the rarer air
Which common people seek,
yet cannot bear,
Fed his high soul and kindled in his eye
The fire of
one who cries "I prophesy!"
"Look up!" he said. They looked but could not see.
"Help us!" they
cried. He strove, but uselessly--
The very clouds which veiled the
heaven they sought
Hid from his eyes the hearts of them he taught!

Give Me a Day
GIVE me a day, beloved, that I may set
A jewel in my heart--I'll
brave regret,
If, on the morrow, you shall say "forget"!
One golden day when dawn shall blush to noon
And noon incline to
dark, and, oversoon,
My joy lie buried 'neath a rounded moon.
Only a day--it's worth you scarce could tell
From other days; but in
my life 'twill dwell
An oasis with palm trees and a well!
Little Brown Bird
O LITTLE brown bird in the rain,
In the sweet rain of spring,
How
you carry the youth of the world
In the bend of your wing!
For you
the long day is for song
And the night is for sleep--
With never a
sunrise too soon
Or a midnight too deep!
For you every pool is the sky,
Breaking clouds chasing through,--
A
heaven so instant and near
That you bathe in its blue!--
And yours
is the freedom to rise
To some song-haunted star
Or sink on soft
wing to the wood
Where your brown nestlings are.
So busy, so strong and so glad,
So care-free and young,
So tingling
with life to be lived
And with songs to be sung,
O little brown
bird!--with your heart
That's the heart of the Spring--
How you
carry the hope of the world
In the bend of your wing!
The Watcher
THE long road and the low shore, a sail against the sky,
The ache in
my heart's core, and hope so hard to die--
Ah me, but the day's
long--and all the sails go by!
The long road and the dark shore, pools with stars aflame,
The ache
in my heart's core, the hope I dare not name--
Ah, me, but the night's

long--and every night the same!
Possession
A YOUTH sat down on a wayside stone,
A pack on his back and a
staff at his knee.
He whistled a tune which he called his own,
"It's a
fine new tune, that tune!" said he.
In his pack he carried a crust of bread,
And he drank from his hands
at a brook hard by;
"Spring water is wonderful cool," he said,
"And
wonderful soft is the summer sky!"
He looked to the hill which his steps had passed,
He looked to the
slope where a brooklet purled,
He looked to the distance blue and
vast
And "Ah," cried he, "what a fine, wide world!"
The youth passed on down the winding track
That led to the
beckoning distance dim,
And though he carried but staff and pack,

The world and its giving belonged to him.
To Arcady
"TELL me, Singer, of the way
Winding down to Arcady?
Of the
world's roads I am weary--
You, with song so brave and cheery,

Happy troubadour must be
On the way to Arcady?"
Pausing on a muted note,
Song forsook the Singer's throat,

"Friend," sighed he, "you