The Dreamers | Page 5

be off where the brooks are waking,
Where birds are building
and green leaves breaking.
Why should the hold of an old task bind
me?
I know of an eyrie I fain would win
Where a wind of the West
shall seek me and find me,
(Heart of my high hills, take me in.)
I must be off where the stars are nearer,
Where feet go swifter and
eyes see clearer,
Little I heed what the toilers name me--
I have
heard the call that to miss were sin,
The April voices that clamour
and claim me,
(Heart of my high hills, take me in.)
THE PARASITE
They brought to the little Princess, from her earliest hour of birth, The
lovely things, the beautiful things, the soft things of earth.
They covered her floor with crimson, they wrapped her in eiderdown;
They hung the windows with cloth of gold, lest her eyes look down;
(Lest the highway show an unlovely thing
And her eyes look down.)
They brought rare toys to her cradle, rich gems to her maidenhood; All
that she saw was beautiful, all that she heard was good.

When tumult rose in the city they bade her minstrels sing; They
drowned with the sound of music a people's clamouring; (Lest she turn
and hark to the highway,
And hear an unlovely thing.)
But there came a day of terror, when a cry too sharp and long Tore
through the streets of the city, through the soft, sweet song.
She bade her singers be silent--silent they stood in awe; She raised the
gold from the window; she looked down and saw. (She leaned and
looked on the highway,
She looked down and saw.)
She saw men driven like cattle, she heard the woman's cry, She saw the
white-faced children toil, and the weaklings die.
She saw the bound and the beaten beneath her like shifting sands,
And--she dropped the cloth on her window with her own white hands,
(She shut out her people's crying
With her own white hands.)
As a child may turn from a picture that he may not understand, She
turned to fragrance and music,--to soft things and bland.
_If the Princess is blind to anguish, if the Princess is deaf to woe,_ _If
the streets of her city may run with blood, and she not know,_ _Now
theirs is the blame who have closed her in ease as in
folded wings,_
_Who have barred the doors and windows, what time
her minstrel sings,_ _Lest her eyes look down on the highway,_
_And
look on unlovely things._
YOUTH
What do they know of youth, who still are young?
They but the
singers of a golden song
Who may not guess its worth or
wonder--flung
Like largesse to the throng.
We only,--young no
longer,--old so long
Before its harmonies, stand marvelling--
Oh!
we who listen--never they who sing.

Not for itself is beauty, but for us
Who gaze upon it with all reverent
eyes;
And youth which sheds its glory luminous,
Gives ever in this
wise:--
Itself the joy it may not realise.
Only we know, who linger
overlong
Youth that is made of beauty and of song.
THE EMPTY HOUSE
April will come to the quiet town
That I left long ago,
Scattering
primroses up and down--
Row upon happy row.
(Oh, little green
lane, will she come your way,
To a certain path I know?)
April will pause by cottage and gate
In the wild, sweet evening rain,

Where the garden borders run brown and straight,
To coax them to
bloom again.
(Oh, little sad garden that once was gay,
Must she call
to you all in vain?)
April will come to cottage and hill,
Laughing her lovers awake.
(Oh,
little closed house, so cold and still,
Will she find you for old joy's
sake,
And leave one primrose beside your door,
Lest the heart of
your garden break?)
THE BROKEN LUTE
Good-bye, my song--I, who found words for sorrow,
Offer my joy
to-day a useless lute.
In the deep night I sang me of the morrow;

The sun is on my face and I am mute.
Good-bye, my song, in you was all my yearning,
The prayer for this
poor heart I wore so long.
Now love heaps roses where the wounds
were burning;
What need have I for song?
Long since I sang of all one loves and misses;
How may I sing to-day
who know no wrong?
My lips are all for laughter and for kisses.

Good-bye, my song.
ORCHARDS

Orchards in the Spring-time! Oh, I think and think of them,-- Filmy
mists of pink and white above the fresh, young green, Lifting and
drifting,--how my eyes could drink of them, _I'm staring at a dirty wall
beyond a big machine._
Orchards in the Spring-time! Deep in soft, cool shadows,-- Moving all
together when the west wind blows
Fragrance upon fragrance over
road and meadows--
_I'm smelling heat and oil and sweat, and thick,
black clothes._
Orchards in the Spring-time! The clean white and pink of them Lifting
and drifting with all the winds that blow.
Orchards in