Foliage: Various Poems | Page 7

sheep stand under shady boughs;?Where furious squirrels shake a tree?As though they'd like to bury me?Under a leaf shower heavy, and?I laugh at them for spite, and stand.?Seek me no more in human ways--?Who am a coward since those days?My mind was burned by poor men's eyes,?And frozen by poor women's sighs.?Then send your pearls across the sea,?Your feathers, scent and ivory,?You distant lands--but let my bales?Be brought by Cuckoos, Nightingales,?That come in spring from your far shores;?Sweet birds that carry richer stores?Than men can dream of, when they prize?Fine silks and pearls for merchandise;?And dream of ships that take the floods?Sunk to their decks with such vain goods;?Bringing that traitor silk, whose soft?Smooth tongue persuades the poor too oft?From sweet content; and pearls, whose fires?Make ashes of our best desires.?For I have heard the sighs and whines?Of rich men that drink costly wines?And eat the best of fish and fowl;?Men that have plenty, and still growl?Because they cannot like kings live--?"Alas!" they whine, "we cannot save."?Since I have heard those rich ones sigh,?Made poor by their desires so high,?I cherish more a simple mind;?That I am well content to find?My pictures in the open air,?And let my walls and floors go bare;?That I with lovely things can fill?My rooms, whene'er sweet Fancy will.?I make a fallen tree my chair,?And soon forget no cushion's there;?I lie upon the grass or straw,?And no soft down do I sigh for;?For with me all the time I keep?Sweet dreams that, do I wake or sleep,?Shed on me still their kindly beams;?Aye, I am richer with my dreams?Than banks where men dull-eyed and cold?Without a tremble shovel gold.?A happy life is this. I walk?And hear more birds than people talk;?I hear the birds that sing unseen,?On boughs now smothered with leaves green;?I sit and watch the swallows there,?Making a circus in the air;?That speed around straight-going crow,?As sharks around a ship can go;?I hear the skylark out of sight,?Hid perfectly in all this light.?The dappled cows in fields I pass,?Up to their bosoms in deep grass;?Old oak trees, with their bowels gone,?I see with spring's green finery on.?I watch the buzzing bees for hours,?To see them rush at laughing flowers--?And butterflies that lie so still.?I see great houses on the hill,?With shining roofs; and there shines one,?It seems that heaven has dropped the sun.?I see yon cloudlet sail the skies,?Racing with clouds ten times its size.?I walk green pathways, where love waits?To talk in whispers at old gates;?Past stiles--on which I lean, alone--?Carved with the names of lovers gone;?I stand on arches whose dark stones?Can turn the wind's soft sighs to groans.?I hear the Cuckoo when first he?Makes this green world's discovery,?And re-creates it in my mind,?Proving my eyes were growing blind.?I see the rainbow come forth clear?And wave her coloured scarf to cheer?The sun long swallowed by a flood--?So do I live in lane and wood.?Let me look forward to each spring?As eager as the birds that sing;?And feed my eyes on spring's young flowers?Before the bees by many hours,?My heart to leap and sing her praise?Before the birds by many days.?Go white my hair and skin go dry--?But let my heart a dewdrop lie?Inside those leaves when they go wrong,?As fresh as when my life was young.
A STRANGE CITY
A wondrous city, that had temples there?More rich than that one built by David's son,?Which called forth Ophir's gold, when Israel?Made Lebanon half naked for her sake.?I saw white towers where so-called traitors died--?True men whose tongues were bells to honest hearts,?And rang out boldly in false monarch's ears.?Saw old black gateways, on whose arches crouched?Stone lions with their bodies gnawed by age.?I looked with awe on iron gates that could?Tell bloody stones if they had our tongues.?I saw tall mounted spires shine in the sun,?That stood amidst their army of low streets.?I saw in buildings pictures, statues rare,?Made in those days when Rome was young, and new?In marble quarried from Carrara's hills;?Statues by sculptors that could almost make?Fine cobwebs out of stone--so light they worked.?Pictures that breathe in us a living soul,?Such as we seldom feel come from that life?The artist copies. Many a lovely sight--?Such as the half sunk barge with bales of hay,?Or sparkling coals--employed my wondering eyes.?I saw old Thames, whose ripples swarmed with stars?Bred by the sun on that fine summer's day;?I saw in fancy fowl and green banks there,?And Liza's barge rowed past a thousand swans.?I walked in parks and heard sweet music cry?In solemn courtyards, midst the men-at-arms;?Which suddenly would leap those stony walls?And spring up with loud laughter into trees.?I walked in busy streets where music oft?Went on the march with men; and ofttimes heard?The organ in cathedral, when the boys?Like nightingales sang in that thunderstorm;?The organ, with its rich and solemn tones--?As near a God's