Second April | Page 5

wood-roads, redolent of fern?And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread?Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant,?Look back and beckon ere they disappear.?Only my heart, only my heart responds.?Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side?All through the dragging day,--sharp underfoot?And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs--?But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach,?And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling,?The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake,?Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road?A gateless garden, and an open path:?My feet to follow, and my heart to hold.
EEL-GRASS
No matter what I say,?All that I really love?Is the rain that flattens on the bay,?And the eel-grass in the cove;?The jingle-shells that lie and bleach?At the tide-line, and the trace?Of higher tides along the beach:?Nothing in this place.
ELEGY BEFORE DEATH
There will be rose and rhododendron?When you are dead and under ground;?Still will be heard from white syringas?Heavy with bees, a sunny sound;
Still will the tamaracks be raining?After the rain has ceased, and still?Will there be robins in the stubble,?Brown sheep upon the warm green hill.
Spring will not ail nor autumn falter;?Nothing will know that you are gone,?Saving alone some sullen plough-land?None but yourself sets foot upon;
Saving the may-weed and the pig-weed?Nothing will know that you are dead,--?These, and perhaps a useless wagon?Standing beside some tumbled shed.
Oh, there will pass with your great passing?Little of beauty not your own,--?Only the light from common water,?Only the grace from simple stone!
THE BEAN-STALK
Ho, Giant! This is I!?I have built me a bean-stalk into your sky!?La,--but it's lovely, up so high!
This is how I came,--I put?Here my knee, there my foot,?Up and up, from shoot to shoot--?And the blessed bean-stalk thinning?Like the mischief all the time,?Till it took me rocking, spinning,?In a dizzy, sunny circle,?Making angles with the root,?Far and out above the cackle?Of the city I was born in,?Till the little dirty city?In the light so sheer and sunny?Shone as dazzling bright and pretty?As the money that you find?In a dream of finding money--?What a wind! What a morning!--
Till the tiny, shiny city,?When I shot a glance below,?Shaken with a giddy laughter,?Sick and blissfully afraid,?Was a dew-drop on a blade,?And a pair of moments after?Was the whirling guess I made,--?And the wind was like a whip
Cracking past my icy ears,?And my hair stood out behind,?And my eyes were full of tears,?Wide-open and cold,?More tears than they could hold,?The wind was blowing so,?And my teeth were in a row,?Dry and grinning,?And I felt my foot slip,?And I scratched the wind and whined,?And I clutched the stalk and jabbered,?With my eyes shut blind,--?What a wind! What a wind!
Your broad sky, Giant,?Is the shelf of a cupboard;?I make bean-stalks, I'm?A builder, like yourself,?But bean-stalks is my trade,?I couldn't make a shelf,?Don't know how they're made,?Now, a bean-stalk is more pliant--?La, what a climb!
WEEDS
White with daisies and red with sorrel?And empty, empty under the sky!--?Life is a quest and love a quarrel--?Here is a place for me to lie.
Daisies spring from damned seeds,?And this red fire that here I see?Is a worthless crop of crimson weeds,?Cursed by farmers thriftily.
But here, unhated for an hour,?The sorrel runs in ragged flame,?The daisy stands, a bastard flower,?Like flowers that bear an honest name.
And here a while, where no wind brings?The baying of a pack athirst,?May sleep the sleep of blessed things,?The blood too bright, the brow accurst.
PASSER MORTUUS EST
Death devours all lovely things;?Lesbia with her sparrow?Shares the darkness,--presently?Every bed is narrow.
Unremembered as old rain?Dries the sheer libation,?And the little petulant hand?Is an annotation.
After all, my erstwhile dear,?My no longer cherished,?Need we say it was not love,?Now that love is perished?
PASTORAL
If it were only still!--?With far away the shrill?Crying of a cock;?Or the shaken bell?From a cow's throat?Moving through the bushes;?Or the soft shock?Of wizened apples falling?From an old tree?In a forgotten orchard?Upon the hilly rock!
Oh, grey hill,?Where the grazing herd?Licks the purple blossom,?Crops the spiky weed!?Oh, stony pasture,?Where the tall mullein?Stands up so sturdy?On its little seed!
ASSAULT
I
I had forgotten how the frogs must sound?After a year of silence, else I think?I should not so have ventured forth alone?At dusk upon this unfrequented road.
II
I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk?Between me and the crying of the frogs??Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,?That am a timid woman, on her way?From one house to another!
TRAVEL
The railroad track is miles away,?And the day is loud with voices speaking,?Yet there isn't a train goes by all day?But I hear its whistle shrieking.
All night there isn't a train goes by,?Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming?But I see its cinders red on the sky,?And hear its engine steaming.
My heart is warm with the friends I make,?And better friends I'll not be knowing,?Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,?No matter where it's going.
LOW-TIDE
These wet rocks where the tide