The Listeners | Page 3

on in dream,?And stillness made even lovelier seem.
THE SCARECROW
All winter through I bow my head?Beneath the driving rain;?The North wind powders me with snow?And blows me black again;?At midnight 'neath a maze of stars?I flame with glittering rime,?And stand, above the stubble, stiff?As mail at morning-prime.?But when that child, called Spring, and all?His host of children, come,?Scattering their buds and dew upon?Those acres of my home,?Some rapture in my rags awakes;?I lift void eyes and scan?The skies for crows, those ravening foes,?Of my strange master, Man.?I watch him striding lank behind?His clashing team, and know?Soon will the wheat swish body high?Where once lay sterile snow;?Soon shall I gaze across a sea?Of sun-begotten grain,?Which my unflinching watch hath sealed?For harvest once again.
NOD
Softly along the road of evening,?In a twilight dim with rose,?Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew?Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.
His drowsy flock streams on before him,?Their fleeces charged with gold,?To where the sun's last beam leans low?On Nod the shepherd's fold.
The hedge is quick and green with briar,?From their sand the conies creep;?And all the birds that fly in heaven?Flock singing home to sleep.
His lambs outnumber a noon's roses,?Yet, when night's shadows fall,?His blind old sheep-dog, Slumber-soon,?Misses not one of all.
His are the quiet steeps of dreamland,?The waters of no-more-pain,?His ram's bell rings 'neath an arch of stars,?'Rest, rest, and rest again.'
THE BINDWEED
The bindweed roots pierce down?Deeper than men do lie,?Laid in their dark-shut graves?Their slumbering kinsmen by.
Yet what frail thin-spun flowers?She casts into the air,?To breathe the sunshine, and?To leave her fragrance there.
But when the sweet moon comes,?Showering her silver down,?Half-wreathèd in faint sleep,?They droop where they have blown.
So all the grass is set,?Beneath her trembling ray,?With buds that have been flowers,?Brimmed with reflected day.
WINTER
Clouded with snow?The cold winds blow,?And shrill on leafless bough?The robin with its burning breast?Alone sings now.
The rayless sun,?Day's journey done,?Sheds its last ebbing light?On fields in leagues of beauty spread?Unearthly white.
Thick draws the dark,?And spark by spark,?The frost-fires kindle, and soon?Over that sea of frozen foam?Floats the white moon.
THERE BLOOMS NO BUD IN MAY
There blooms no bud in May?Can for its white compare?With snow at break of day,?On fields forlorn and bare.
For shadow it hath rose,?Azure, and amethyst;?And every air that blows?Dies out in beauteous mist.
It hangs the frozen bough?With flowers on which the night?Wheeling her darkness through?Scatters a starry light.
Fearful of its pale glare?In flocks the starlings rise;?Slide through the frosty air,?And perch with plaintive cries.
Only the inky rook,?Hunched cold in ruffled wings,?Its snowy nest forsook,?Caws of unnumbered Springs.
NOON AND NIGHT FLOWER
Not any flower that blows?But shining watch doth keep;?Every swift changing chequered hour it knows?Now to break forth in beauty; now to sleep.
This for the roving bee?Keeps open house, and this?Stainless and clear is, that in darkness she?May lure the moth to where her nectar is.
Lovely beyond the rest?Are these of all delight:--?The tiny pimpernel that noon loves best,?The primrose palely burning through the night.
One 'neath day's burning sky?With ruby decks her place,?The other when Eve's chariot glideth by?Lifts her dim torch to light that dreaming face.
ESTRANGED
No one was with me there--?Happy I was--alone;?Yet from the sunshine suddenly?A joy was gone.
A bird in an empty house?Sad echoes makes to ring,?Flitting from room to room?On restless wing:
Till from its shades he flies,?And leaves forlorn and dim?The narrow solitudes?So strange to him.
So, when with fickle heart?I joyed in the passing day,?A presence my mood estranged?Went grieved away.
THE TIRED CUPID
The thin moonlight with trickling ray,?Thridding the boughs of silver may,?Trembles in beauty, pale and cool,?On folded flower, and mantled pool.?All in a haze the rushes lean--?And he--he sits, with chin between?His two cold hands; his bare feet set?Deep in the grasses, green and wet.?About his head a hundred rings?Of gold loop down to meet his wings,?Whose feathers arched their stillness through?Gleam with slow-gathering drops of dew.?The mouse-bat peers; the stealthy vole?Creeps from the covert of its hole;?A shimmering moth its pinions furls,?Grey in the moonshine of his curls;?'Neath the faint stars the night-airs stray,?Scattering the fragrance of the may;?And with each stirring of the bough?Shadow beclouds his childlike brow.
DREAMS
Be gentle, O hands of a child;?Be true: like a shadowy sea?In the starry darkness of night?Are your eyes to me.
But words are shallow, and soon?Dreams fade that the heart once knew;?And youth fades out in the mind,?In the dark eyes too.
What can a tired heart say,?Which the wise of the world have made dumb??Save to the lonely dreams of a child,?'Return again, come!'
FAITHLESS
The words you said grow faint;?The lamp you lit burns dim;?Yet, still be near your faithless friend?To urge and counsel him.
Still with returning feet?To where life's shadows brood,?With steadfast eyes made clear in death?Haunt his vague solitude.
So he, beguiled with earth,?Yet with its vain things vexed,?Keep even to his own heart unknown?Your memory unperplexed.
THE SHADE
Darker than night; and oh, much darker, she,?Whose eyes