Poems By a Little Girl | Page 9

flings itself on the beach.?Oh, it is joy, then!?No more whispers like sorrow,?No more silvery lonesome lapping of the long wave . . .
RED-CAP MOSS
Have you seen red-cap moss?In the woods??Have you looked under the trembling caps?For faces??Have you seen wonder on those faces?Because you are so big?
RAMBLER ROSE
Rambler Rose in great clusters,?Looking at me, at my mother with me?Under this apple-tree,?Your faces watch us from outside the shade.
The wind blows on you,?The rain drops on you,?The sun shines on you,?You are brighter than before.?You turn your faces to the wind?And watch my mother and me,?Thinking of things I cannot mention?Outside of my mind.?Rambler Rose in the shining wind,?You smile at me,?Smile at my mother!
GIFT
This is mint and here are three pinks?I have brought you, Mother.?They are wet with rain?And shining with it.?The pinks smell like more of them?In a blue vase:?The mint smells like summer?In many gardens.
THE WHITE CLOUD
There are many clouds?But not like the one I see,?For mine floats like a swan in featheriness?Over the River of the Broken Pine.
There are many clouds?But not like the one that goes sailing?Like a ship full of gold that shines,?Like a ship leaning above blue water.
There are many clouds?But not like the one I wait for,?For mine will have a strangeness?Whiter than anything your eyes remember.
MOON THOUGHT
The moon is thinking of the river?Winding through the mountains far away,?Because she has a river in her heart?Full of the same silver.
THE OLD BRIDGE
The old bridge has a wrinkled face.?He bends his back?For us to go over.?He moans and weeps?But we do not hear.?Sorrow stands in his face?For the heavy weight and worry?Of people passing.?The trees drop their leaves into the water;?The sky nods to him.?The leaves float down like small ships?On the blue surface?Which is the sky.?He is not always sad:?He smiles to see the ships go down?And the little children?Playing on the river banks.
FERNS
Small ferns up-coming through the mossy green,?Up-curling and springing,?See trees circling round them,?And the straight brook like a lily-stem:?Hear the water laughing?At the stern old pine-tree?Who keeps sighing to himself all day long?What's the use! What's the use!
LAND OF NOD
I wander mountain to mountain,?From sea to sea,?I wander into a country?Where everyone is asleep.?There in the Land of Nod?I never think of home,?For home is there,?With sleeping doves and silvery girls,?Sleeping boys and drowsy roses.?There I find people whose eyes are heavy,?And trees with folded wings.
SUN FLOWERS
Sun-flowers, stop growing!?If you touch the sky where those clouds are passing?Like tufts of dandelion gone to seed,?The sky will put you out!?You know it is blue like the sea . . .?Maybe it is wet, too!?Your gold faces will be gone forever?If you brush against that blue?Ever so softly!
HOLLAND SONG
For a Dutch picture
When light comes creeping through the?That shine with mist,?When winds blow soft,?Windmills wake and whirl.?In Holland, in Holland,?Everything is cheerful?Across the sea:?White nets are beside the water?Where ships sail by.?The mountains begin to get blue,?The Dutch girls begin to sing,?The windmills begin to whirl.?Then night comes?The mountains turn dark gray?And faint away into night.?Not a bird chirps his song.?All is drowsy,?All is strange,?With the moon and stars shining round the world:?The wind stops,?The windmills stop?In Holland . . .
FOUNTAIN-TALK
Said the fountain to its clear bed,?"You might flow faster!?I am sprinkling my best, every day,?But ice is holding you fast.?Can't you get out??Can't you lift yourself with sun??I am tired waiting for slow cold water?To fling about the air:?Can't you wake yourself up?"?But the fountain-basin murmured softly?"Sleep . . . sleep . . .?Sleep . . . sleep . . .?You with your talking and talking!?Hush . . . hush . . .?I hear the bird-sandman!"
POPLARS
The poplars bow forward and back;?They are like a fan waving very softly.?They tremble,?For they love the wind in their feathery branches.?They love to look down at the shallows,
At the mermaids?On the sandy shore;?They love to look into morning's face
Cool in the water.
THE TOWER AND THE FALCON
There was a tower, once,?In a London street.?It was the highest, widest, thickest tower,?The proudest, roundest, finest tower?Of all towers.?English men passed it by:?They could not see it all?Because it went above tree-tops and clouds.
It was lonely up there where the trees stopped?Until one day?A blue falcon came flying.?He cried:?"Tower! Do you know you are the highest, finest, roundest, The tallest, proudest, greatest,?Of all the towers?In all the world?"
He went away.?That night the tower made a new song?About himself.
THOUGHTS
My thoughts keep going far away?Into another country under a different sky:?My thoughts are sea-foam and sand;?They are apple-petals fluttering.
POEM-SKETCH IN THREE PARTS
(Made for the picture on the jacket of the?Norwegian book, The Great Hunger, by Johan Bojer)
I
THE ROLLING IN OF THE WAVE
It was night when the sky was dark blue?And the water came in with a wavy look?Like a spider's web.?The point of the slope came down to the water's edge;?It