Songs from Vagabondia | Page 2

the gathering frost;
(Or is it their slogan, plaintive and shrill,?As they beat on their corselets, valiant still?)
A hunger fit for the kings of the sea,?And a loaf of bread for Dickon and me;
A thirst like that of the Thirsty Sword,?And a jug of cider on the board;
An idle noon, a bubbling spring,?The sea in the pine-tops murmuring;
A scrap of gossip at the ferry;?A comrade neither glum nor merry,
Asking nothing, revealing naught,?But minting his words from a fund of thought,
A keeper of silence eloquent,?Needy, yet royally well content,
Of the mettled breed, yet abhorring strife,?And full of the mellow juice of life;
A taster of wine, with an eye for a maid,?Never too bold, and never afraid,
Never heart-whole, never heart-sick,?(These are the things I worship in Dick)
No fidget and no reformer, just?A calm observer of ought and must,
A lover of books, but a reader of man,?No cynic and no charlatan,
Who never defers and never demands,?But, smiling, takes the world in his hands,--
Seeing it good as when God first saw?And gave it the weight of his will for law.
And O the joy that is never won,?But follows and follows the journeying sun,
By marsh and tide, by meadow and stream,?A will-o'-the-wind, a light-o'-dream,
Delusion afar, delight anear,?From morrow to morrow, from year to year,
A jack-o'-lantern, a fairy fire,?A dare, a bliss, and a desire!
The racy smell of the forest loam,?When the stealthy, sad-heart leaves go home;
(O leaves, O leaves, I am one with you,?Of the mould and the sun and the wind and the dew!)
The broad gold wake of the afternoon;?The silent fleck of the cold new moon;
The sound of the hollow sea's release?From stormy tumult to starry peace;
With only another league to wend;?And two brown arms at the journey's end!
These are the joys of the open road--?For him who travels without a load.
EVENING ON THE POTOMAC.
The fervid breath of our flushed Southern May?Is sweet upon the city's throat and lips,?As a lover's whose tired arm slips?Listlessly over the shoulder of a queen.
Far away?The river melts in the unseen.?Oh, beautiful Girl-City, how she dips?Her feet in the stream?With a touch that is half a kiss and half a dream!?Her face is very fair,?With flowers for smiles and sunlight in her hair.
My westland flower-town, how serene she is!?Here on this hill from which I look at her,?All is still as if a worshipper?Left at some shrine his offering.
Soft winds kiss?My cheek with a slow lingering.?A luring whisper where the laurels stir?Wiles my heart back to woodland-ward again.
But lo,?Across the sky the sunset couriers run,?And I remain?To watch the imperial pageant of the Sun?Mock me, an impotent Cortez here below,?With splendors of its vaster Mexico.
O Eldorado of the templed clouds!?O golden city of the western sky!?Not like the Spaniard would I storm thy gates;?Not like the babe stretch chubby hands and cry
To have thee for a toy; but far from crowds,?Like my Faun brother in the ferny glen,?Peer from the wood's edge while thy glory waits,?And in the darkening thickets plunge again.
SPRING SONG.
Make me over, mother April,?When the sap begins to stir!?When thy flowery hand delivers?All the mountain-prisoned rivers,?And thy great heart beats and quivers,?To revive the days that were,?Make me over, mother April,?When the sap begins to stir!
Take my dust and all my dreaming,?Count my heart-beats one by one,?Send them where the winters perish;?Then some golden noon recherish?And restore them in the sun,?Flower and scent and dust and dreaming,?With their heart-beats every one!
Set me in the urge and tide-drift?Of the streaming hosts a-wing!?Breast of scarlet, throat of yellow,?Raucous challenge, wooings mellow--?Every migrant is my fellow,?Making northward with the spring.?Loose me in the urge and tide-drift?Of the streaming hosts a-wing!
Shrilling pipe or fluting whistle,?In the valleys come again;?Fife of frog and call of tree-toad,?All my brothers, five or three-toed,?With their revel no more vetoed,?Making music in the rain;?Shrilling pipe or fluting whistle,?In the valleys come again.
Make me of thy seed to-morrow,?When the sap begins to stir!?Tawny light-foot, sleepy bruin,?Bright-eyes in the orchard ruin,?Gnarl the good life goes askew in,?Whiskey-jack, or tanager,--?Make me anything to-morrow,?When the sap begins to stir!
Make me even (How do I know?)?Like my friend the gargoyle there;?It may be the heart within him?Swells that doltish hands should pin him?Fixed forever in mid-air.?Make me even sport for swallows,?Like the soaring gargoyle there!
Give me the old clue to follow,?Through the labyrinth of night!?Clod of clay with heart of fire,?Things that burrow and aspire,?With the vanishing desire,?For the perishing delight,--?Only the old clue to follow,?Through the labyrinth of night!
Make me over, mother April,?When the sap begins to stir!?Fashion me from swamp or meadow,?Garden plot or ferny shadow,?Hyacinth or humble burr!?Make me over, mother April,?When the sap begins to stir!
Let me hear the far, low summons,?When the silver winds return;?Rills that run and streams that stammer,?Goldenwing with his loud hammer,?Icy brooks that brawl and clamor,?Where the Indian willows burn;?Let