Songs Out of Doors | Page 4

little flower,?Reading mournful mood of mine?In your looks, that give no sign?Of a spirit dark and cheerless!?You possess the heavenly power?That rejoices in the hour.?Glad, contented, free, and fearless,?Lift a sunny face to heaven?When a sunny day is given!?Make a summer of your own,?Blooming late and all alone!
Once the daisies gold and white?Sea-like through the meadow rolled:?Once my heart could hardly hold?All its pleasures. I remember,?In the flood of youth's delight?Separate joys were lost to sight.?That was summer! Now November?Sets the perfect flower apart;?Gives each blossom of the heart?Meaning, beauty, grace unknown,--?Blooming late and all alone.
November, 1899.
THE LILY OF YORROW
Deep in the heart of the forest the lily of Yorrow is growing; Blue is its cup as the sky, and with mystical odour o'erflowing; Faintly it falls through the shadowy glades when the south wind is blowing.
Sweet are the primroses pale and the violets after a shower; Sweet are the borders of pinks and the blossoming grapes on the bower; Sweeter by far is the breath of that far-away woodland flower.
Searching and strange in its sweetness, it steals like a perfume enchanted Under the arch of the forest, and all who perceive it are haunted, Seeking and seeking for ever, till sight of the lily is granted.
Who can describe how it grows, with its chalice of lazuli leaning Over a crystalline spring, where the ferns and the mosses are greening? Who can imagine its beauty, or utter the depth of its meaning?
Calm of the journeying stars, and repose of the mountains olden, Joy of the swift-running rivers, and glory of sunsets golden, Secrets that cannot be told in the heart of the flower are holden.
Surely to see it is peace and the crown of a lifelong endeavour; Surely to pluck it is gladness,--but they who have found it can never Tell of the gladness and peace: they are hid from our vision for ever.
'Twas but a moment ago that a comrade was walking near me:?Turning aside from the pathway he murmured a greeting to cheer me,-- Then he was lost in the shade, and I called but he did not hear me.
Why should I dream he is dead, and bewail him with passionate sorrow? Surely I know there is gladness in finding the lily of Yorrow: He has discovered it first, and perhaps I shall find it to-morrow.
1894.
II
OF SKIES AND SEASONS
IF ALL THE SKIES
If all the skies were sunshine,?Our faces would be fain?To feel once more upon them?The cooling plash of rain.
If all the world were music,?Our hearts would often long?For one sweet strain of silence,?To break the endless song.
If life were always merry,?Our souls would seek relief,?And rest from weary laughter?In the quiet arms of grief.
THE AFTER-ECHO
How long the echoes love to play?Around the shore of silence, as a wave?Retreating circles down the sand!?One after one, with sweet delay,?The mellow sounds that cliff and island gave,?Have lingered in the crescent bay,?Until, by lightest breezes fanned,?They float far off beyond the dying day
And leave it still as death.?But hark,--?Another singing breath?Comes from the edge of dark;?A note as clear and slow?As falls from some enchanted bell,?Or spirit, passing from the world below,?That whispers back, Farewell.?So in the heart,?When, fading slowly down the past,?Fond memories depart,?And each that leaves it seems the last;?Long after all the rest are flown,?Returns a solitary tone,--?The after-echo of departed years,--?And touches all the soul to tears.
1871.
DULCIORA
A tear that trembles for a little while?Upon the trembling eyelid, till the world?Wavers within its circle like a dream,?Holds more of meaning in its narrow orb?Than all the distant landscape that it blurs.
A smile that hovers round a mouth beloved,?Like the faint pulsing of the Northern Light,?And grows in silence to an amber dawn?Born in the sweetest depths of trustful eyes,?Is dearer to the soul than sun or star.
A joy that falls into the hollow heart?From some far-lifted height of love unseen,?Unknown, makes a more perfect melody?Than hidden brooks that murmur in the dusk,?Or fall athwart the cliff with wavering gleam.
Ah, not for their own sake are earth and sky?And the fair ministries of Nature dear,?But as they set themselves unto the tune?That fills our life; as light mysterious?Flows from within and glorifies the world.
For so a common wayside blossom, touched?With tender thought, assumes a grace more sweet?Than crowns the royal lily of the South;?And so a well-remembered perfume seems?The breath of one who breathes in Paradise.
1872.
MATINS
Flowers rejoice when night is done,?Lift their heads to greet the sun;?Sweetest looks and odours raise,?In a silent hymn of praise.
So my heart would turn away?From the darkness to the day;?Lying open in God's sight?Like a flower in the light.
THE PARTING AND THE COMING GUEST
Who watched the worn-out Winter die??Who, peering through the window-pane?At nightfall, under sleet and rain?Saw the old graybeard totter by??Who listened to his parting sigh,?The sobbing of his feeble