Songs, Merry and Sad | Page 9

the eagle's wild, high freedom, would?That ours might be this day the eagle's heart!
Harvest
Cows in the stall and sheep in the fold;?Clouds in the west, deep crimson and gold;?A heron's far flight to a roost somewhere;?The twitter of killdees keen in the air;?The noise of a wagon that jolts through the gloam
On the last load home.
There are lights in the windows; a blue spire of smoke?Climbs from the grange grove of elm and oak.?The smell of the Earth, where the night pours to her?Its dewy libation, is sweeter than myrrh,?And an incense to Toil is the smell of the loam
On the last load home.
Two Pictures
One sits in soft light, where the hearth is warm,?A halo, like an angel's, on her hair.?She clasps a sleeping infant in her arm.?A holy presence hovers round her there,?And she, for all her mother-pains more fair,?Is happy, seeing that all sweet thoughts that stir?The hearts of men bear worship unto her.
Another wanders where the cold wind blows,?Wet-haired, with eyes that sting one like a knife.?Homeless forever, at her bosom close?She holds the purchase of her love and life,?Of motherhood, unglorified as wife;?And bitterer than the world's relentless scorn?The knowing her child were happier never born.
Whence are the halo and the fiery shame?That fashion thus a crown and curse of love??Have roted words such power to bless and blame??Ay, men have stained a raven from many a dove,?And all the grace and all the grief hereof?Are the two words which bore one's lips apart?And which the other hoarded in her heart.
He who stooped down and wrote upon the sand,?The God-heart in him touched to tenderness,?Saw deep, saw what we cannot understand, --?We, who draw near the shrine of one to bless?The while we scourge another's sore distress,?And judge like gods between the ill and good,?The glory and the guilt of womanhood.
October
The thought of old, dear things is in thine eyes,?O, month of memories!?Musing on days thine heart hath sorrow of,?Old joy, dead hope, dear love,
I see thee stand where all thy sisters meet?To cast down at thy feet?The garnered largess of the fruitful year,?And on thy cheek a tear.
Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf?To blind the eyes of grief;?Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit?That sorrow may be mute;
A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep,?Ere the gray dusk may creep?Sober and sad along thy dusty ways,?Like a lone nun, who prays;
High and faint-heard thy passing migrant calls;?Thy lazy lizard sprawls?On his gray stone, and many slow winds creep?About thy hedge, asleep;
The sun swings farther toward his love, the south,?To kiss her glowing mouth;?And Death, who steals among thy purpling bowers,?Is deeply hid in flowers.
Would that thy streams were Lethe, and might flow?Where lotus blossoms blow,?And all the sweets wherewith thy riches bless?Might hold no bitterness!
Would, in thy beauty, we might all forget?Dead days and old regret,?And through thy realm might fare us forth to roam,?Having no thought for home!
And yet I feel, beneath thy queen's attire,?Woven of blood and fire,?Beneath the golden glory of thy charm?Thy mother heart beats warm,
And if, mayhap, a wandering child of thee,?Weary of land and sea,?Should turn him homeward from his dreamer's quest?To sob upon thy breast,
Thine arm would fold him tenderly, to prove?How thine eyes brimmed with love,?And thy dear hand, with all a mother's care,?Would rest upon his hair.
The Old Clock
All day low clouds and slanting rain?Have swept the woods and dimmed the plain.?Wet winds have swayed the birch and oak,?And caught and swirled away the smoke,?But, all day long, the wooden clock
Went on, Nic-noc, nic-noc.
When deep at night I wake with fear,?And shudder in the dark to hear?The roaring storm's unguided strength,?Peace steals into my heart at length,?When, calm amid the shout and shock,
I hear, Nic-noc, nic-noc.
And all the winter long 't is I?Who bless its sheer monotony --?Its scorn of days, which cares no whit?For time, except to measure it:?The prosy, dozy, cosy clock,
Nic-noc, nic-noc, nic-noc!
Tear Stains
Tear-marks stain from page to page?This book my fathers left to me, --?So dull that nothing but its age?Were worth its freight across the sea.
But tear stains! When, by whom, and why??Thus takes my fancy to its wings;?For grief is old, and one may cry?About so many things!
A Prayer
If many years should dim my inward sight,?Till, stirred with no emotion,?I might stand gazing at the fall of night?Across the gloaming ocean;
Till storm, and sun, and night, vast with her stars,?Would seem an oft-told story,?And the old sorrow of heroic wars?Be faded of its glory;
Till, hearing, while June's roses blew their musk,?The noise of field and city,?The human struggle, sinking tired at dusk,?I felt no thrill of pity;
Till dawn should come without her old desire,?And day brood o'er her stages, --?O let me die, too frail for nature's hire,?And rest a million ages.
She Being Young
The home of love