More Songs From Vagabondia | Page 5

I muse),
Wood-flower, sea-flower,
star-flower rare?
Worlds here to choose from, and which will she
choose,
She whose first world is an armsweep of air?
Baby Karlene, you are wondering now
Why you can't reach the great
moon that you see
Just at your hand on the edge of the bough
That
waves in the window-pane--how can it be?
All your world yet hardly lies out of reach
Of ten little fingers and ten
little toes.
You are a seed for the sky there to teach
(And the sun
and the wind and the rain) as it grows.
Just a green leaf piercing up to the day,
Pale fleck of June to come,

just to be seen
Through the rough crumble of rubble and clay

Lifting its loveliness, dawn-child, Karlene!
Fragile as fairycraft, dew-dream of love,--
Never a clod that has
marred the slim stalk,
Never a stone but its frail fingers move,
Bent
on the blue sky and nothing can balk!
Blue sky and wind-laughters, that is thy dream.
Ah the brave days
when thy leafage shall toss
High where gold noondays and sunsets
a-stream
Mix with its moving and kiss it across.
There the great clouds shall go lazily by,
Coo! thee with shadows and
dazzle with shine,
Drench thee with rain-guerdons, bless thee with
sky,
Till all the knowledge of earth shall be thine.
Wind from the ice-floe and wind from the palm,
Wind from the
mountains and wind from the lea--
How they will sing thee of
tempest and calm!
How they will lure thee with tales of the sea!
What will you be in that summer, Karlene?
Apple-tree, cherry-tree,
lily, or corn?
Red rose or yellow rose, gray leaf or green?
Which
will you choose now the year's at its morn?
Somewhere even now in thy heart is the will,--
"I shall be Golden
Rod, slender and tall--
I shall be Pond Lily, secret and still--
I shall
be Sweetbriar, Queen of them all--
"I shall give shade for the weary to rest--
I shall grow flax for the
naked to wear--
Figs for a feast and all comers to guest--
Wreaths
that girls twine in the laugh of their hair--
"Ivy for scholars and myrtle for lovers,
Laurel for conquerors, poets,
and kings--
Broad-spreading beech-boughs whose benison covers

Clamor of bird-notes and flutter of wings--
"I shall rise tall as an elm in my grace--
I shall be clothed as catalpa is

clad--
Poets shall crown me with lyrics of praise--
Lovers for lure
of my blossoms go mad!"
Which shall it be, baby? Guess you at all?
Only I know in the lull of
the year
You have said now where your choosing shall fall,
Only
you have not yet heard yourself, dear.
So, like a mocking-bird, up in the trees,
I watching wondering where
you have grown,
Borrow a note from a birdfellow's glees,
Fittest to
sing you, and make it my own.
Only I know as I wonder, Karlene,
Singing up here where you think
me a star,
Heaven's still above me, and some one serene
Laughs in
the blue sky and knows what you are.
KARLENE.
Good-morning, Karlene. It's a very
Fine beautiful world we are in.

Well, you do look as ripe as a berry;
And, pardon me, such a real
chin!
And may I--Ah, thank you; the pleasure
Is mine; just one kiss by your
ear!--
May I introduce myself as your
Most dutiful godfather, dear?
I have fumed, like champagne that is fizzy,
To pay my respects at
your door.
But the publishers keep one so busy.
Forgive my not
calling before!
Karlene, you're a very small lady
To venture so far all alone;

Especially into so shady
A place as this planet has grown.
When I_ now, my dear, was at _your age,
When nobody tried to be
rich,
But lived on high thinking and porridge
(And didn't know t'
other from which!),
For a girl to go out unattended
Was considered "not only unwise


And improper--" Our grandmothers ended
By lifting to heaven their
eyes.
And yet even now, though it's shocking
To slander these wonderful
years,
I dare say an inch of black stocking
Could set all the world
by the ears.
Black, mind you, not blue! It's a trifle;
But trifling in stockings won't
do;
For love has an eye like a rifle
(His bandage is slipping askew).
But there! You are simply too charming.
No doubt you'll be modern
enough
(Though the speed of the world is alarming)
To win with a
delicate bluff,
As we say when we're raking the chips in,
On a hand that was not
over strong--
But I see you are pursing your lips in;
Perhaps I am
prating too long.
Anyhow you'll be learned in isms,
And talk pterodactyls in French,

And know polyhedrons from prisms,--
Though you may not know
how to retrench.
You will fall out of love with digamma
To fall in again with Delsarte;

You will make a new Syriac grammar,
And know all the popes off
by heart.
What Socrates said to Xantippe
When the lash of her tongue made
him grieve;
What makes the banana peel slippy;
And what the
snake whispered to Eve;
The music that Nero had played him,
When Rome was touched off
with a match;
Why the