Lyrics of Earth

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Title: Lyrics of Earth
Author: Archibald Lampman
Release Date: July 11, 2007 [EBook #12664]?[This file was first posted on June 19, 2004]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYRICS OF EARTH ***
Produced by Andrew Sly.
Thank you to Canadian Poetry [http://www.canadianpoetry.ca] for providing the source text.
Revised by Jana Srna and the Online Distributed?Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
LYRICS OF EARTH
BY
ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN
[Illustration]
BOSTON
COPELAND AND DAY
MDCCCXCV
Copyright by Copeland and Day, 1895.
CONTENTS
The Sweetness of Life 5
God-speed to the Snow 7
April in the Hills 8
Forest Moods 9
The Return of the Year 10
Favorites of Pan 11
The Meadow 14
In May 17
Life and Nature 19
With the Night 20
June 21
Distance 24
The Bird and the Hour 25
After Rain 25
Cloud-break 27
The Moon-path 28
Comfort of the Fields 29
At the Ferry 32
September 35
A Re-assurance 38
The Poet's Possession 39
An Autumn Landscape 39
In November 40
By an Autumn Stream 42
Snowbirds 44
Snow 45
Sunset 46
Winter-store 48
The Sun Cup 56
TO MY MOTHER
Mother, to whose valiant will,?Battling long ago,?What the heaping years fulfil,?Light and song, I owe;?Send my little book a-field,?Fronting praise or blame?With the shining flag and shield?Of your name.
THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE
It fell on a day I was happy,?And the winds, the concave sky,?The flowers and the beasts in the meadow?Seemed happy even as I;?And I stretched my hands to the meadow,?To the bird, the beast, the tree:?"Why are ye all so happy?"?I cried, and they answered me.
What sayest thou, Oh meadow,?That stretches so wide, so far,?That none can say how many?Thy misty marguerites are??And what say ye, red roses,?That o'er the sun-blanched wall?From your high black-shadowed trellis?Like flame or blood-drops fall??"We are born, we are reared, and we linger?A various space and die;?We dream, and are bright and happy,?But we cannot answer why."
What sayest thou, Oh shadow,?That from the dreaming hill?All down the broadening valley?Liest so sharp and still??And thou, Oh murmuring brooklet,?Whereby in the noonday gleam?The loosestrife burns like ruby,?And the branch��d asters dream??"We are born, we are reared, and we linger?A various space and die;?We dream and are very happy,?But we cannot answer why."
And then of myself I questioned,?That like a ghost the while?Stood from me and calmly answered,?With slow and curious smile:?"Thou art born as the flowers, and wilt linger?Thine own short space and die;?Thou dream'st and art strangely happy,?But thou canst not answer why."
GOD-SPEED TO THE SNOW
March is slain; the keen winds fly;?Nothing more is thine to do;?April kisses thee good-bye;?Thou must haste and follow too;?Silent friend that guarded well?Withered things to make us glad,?Shyest friend that could not tell?Half the kindly thought he had.?Haste thee, speed thee, O kind snow;?Down the dripping valleys go,?From the fields and gleaming meadows,?Where the slaying hours behold thee,?From the forests whose slim shadows,?Brown and leafless cannot fold thee,?Through the cedar lands aflame?With gold light that cleaves and quivers,?Songs that winter may not tame,?Drone of pines and laugh of rivers.?May thy passing joyous be?To thy father, the great sea,?For the sun is getting stronger;?Earth hath need of thee no longer;?Go, kind snow, God-speed to thee!
APRIL IN THE HILLS
To-day the world is wide and fair?With sunny fields of lucid air,?And waters dancing everywhere;?The snow is almost gone;?The noon is builded high with light,?And over heaven's liquid height,?In steady fleets serene and white,?The happy clouds go on.
The channels run, the bare earth steams,?And every hollow rings and gleams?With jetting falls and dashing streams;?The rivers burst and fill;?The fields are full of little lakes,?And when the romping wind awakes?The water ruffles blue and shakes,?And the pines roar on the hill.
The crows go by, a noisy throng;?About the meadows all day long?The shore-lark drops his brittle song;?And up the leafless tree?The nut-hatch runs, and nods, and clings;?The bluebird dips with flashing wings,?The robin flutes, the sparrow sings,?And the swallows float and flee.
I break the spirit's cloudy bands,?A wanderer in enchanted lands,?I feel the sun upon my hands;?And far from care and strife?The broad earth bids me forth. I rise?With lifted brow and upward eyes.?I bathe my spirit in blue skies,?And taste the springs of life.
I feel the tumult of new birth;?I waken with the wakening earth;?I match the bluebird in her mirth;?And wild with wind and sun,?A treasurer of immortal days,?I roam the glorious world with praise,?The hillsides and the woodland ways,?Till earth and I are one.
FOREST MOODS
There is singing of birds in the deep wet woods,?In the heart of the listening solitudes,?Pewees, and thrushes, and sparrows, not few,?And all the notes of their throats are true.
The thrush from the innermost ash takes on?A tender dream of the treasured and gone;?But the sparrow