Songs, Merry and Sad | Page 8

his baby eyes could tell

What grace and glory were,
No roar of
gun, no boom of bell
Were worth the look of her.
Now praise to
God that ere his grace
Was scorned and he reviled
He looked into
his mother's face,
A little helpless child;
And praise to God that ere
men strove
About his tomb in war
One loved him with a mother's
love,
Nor knew a creed therefor.

When I Go Home
When I go home, green, green will glow the grass,
Whereon the flight
of sun and cloud will pass;
Long lines of wood-ducks through the
deepening gloam
Will hold above the west, as wrought on brass,

And fragrant furrows will have delved the loam,
When I go home.
When I go home, the dogwood stars will dash
The solemn woods
above the bearded ash,
The yellow-jasmine, whence its vine hath
clomb,
Will blaze the valleys with its golden flash,
And every
orchard flaunt its polychrome,
When I go home.
When I go home and stroll about the farm,
The thicket and the
barnyard will be warm.
Jess will be there, and Nigger Bill, and Tom
--
On whom time's chisel works no hint of harm --
And, oh, 'twill
be a day to rest and roam,
When I go home!
Odessa
A horror of great darkness over them,
No cloud of fire to guide and
cover them,
Beasts for the shambles, tremulous with dread,
They
crouch on alien soil among their dead.
"Thy shield and thy exceeding great reward,"
This was thine ancient
covenant, O Lord,
Which, sealed with mirth, these many thousand
years
Is black with blood and blotted out with tears.
Have these not toiled through Egypt's burning sun,
And wept beside
the streams of Babylon,
Led from thy wilderness of hill and glen

Into a wider wilderness of men?

Life bore them ever less of gain than loss,
Before and since
Golgotha's piteous Cross,
And surely, now, their sorrow hath sufficed

For all the hate that grew from love of Christ!
Thou great God-heart, heed thou thy people's cry,
Bare-browed and
empty-handed where they die,
Sea-sundered from wall-girt Jerusalem,

There being no sword that wills to succor them, --
And Miriam's song, long hushed, will rise to thee,
And all thy people
lift their eyes to thee,
When, for the darkness' horror over them,

Thou comest, a cloud of light to cover them.
Trifles
What shall I bring you, sweet?
A posy prankt with every April hue:

The cloud-white daisy, violet sky-blue,
Shot with the primrose
sunshine through and through?
Or shall I bring you, sweet,
Some ancient rhyme of lovers sore beset,

Whose joy is dead, whose sadness lingers yet,
That you may read,
and sigh, and soon forget?
What shall I bring you, sweet?
Was ever trifle yet so held amiss
As
not to fill love's waiting heart with bliss,
And merit dalliance at a long,
long kiss?
Sunburnt Boys
Down on the Lumbee river
Where the eddies ripple cool
Your boat,
I know, glides stealthily
About some shady pool.
The summer's
heats have lulled asleep
The fish-hawk's chattering noise,
And all
the swamp lies hushed about
You sunburnt boys.
You see the minnow's waves that rock
The cradled lily leaves.

From a far field some farmer's song,
Singing among his sheaves,

Comes mellow to you where you sit,
Each man with boatman's poise,


There, in the shimmering water lights,
You sunburnt boys.
I know your haunts: each gnarly bole
That guards the waterside,

Each tuft of flags and rushes where
The river reptiles hide,
Each
dimpling nook wherein the bass
His eager life employs
Until he
dies -- the captive of
You sunburnt boys.
You will not -- will you? -- soon forget
When I was one of you,
Nor
love me less that time has borne
My craft to currents new;
Nor shall
I ever cease to share
Your hardships and your joys,
Robust,
rough-spoken, gentle-hearted
Sunburnt boys!
Gray Days
A soaking sedge,
A faded field, a leafless hill and hedge,
Low clouds and rain,
And loneliness and languor worse than pain.
Mottled with moss,
Each gravestone holds to heaven a patient Cross.
Shrill streaks of light
Two sycamores' clean-limbed, funereal white,
And low between,
The sombre cedar and the ivy green.
Upon the stone
Of each in turn who called this land his own
The gray rain beats
And wraps the wet world in its flying sheets,
And at my eaves
A slow wind, ghostlike, comes and grieves and
grieves.
An Invalid
I care not what his name for God may be,
Nor what his wisdom holds
of heaven and hell,
The alphabet whereby he strives to spell
His
lines of life, nor where he bends his knee,
Since, with his grave

before him, he can see
White Peace above it, while the churchyard
bell
Poised in its tower, poised now, to boom his knell,
Seems but
the waiting tongue of liberty.
For names and knowledge, idle breed of breath,
And cant and creed,
the progeny of strife,
Thronging the safe, companioned streets of life,

Shrink trembling from the cold, clear eye of death,
And learn too
late why dying lips can smile:
That goodness is the only creed worth
while.
A Caged Mocking-Bird
I pass a cobbler's shop along the street
And pause a moment at the
door-step, where,
In nature's medley, piping cool and sweet,
The
songs that