The Little Book of Modern Verse | Page 9

republic will require;?With clamor, in the glare and gaze of noon,?Or subtly, coming as a thief at night,?But surely, very surely, slow or soon?That insult deep we deeply will requite.?Tempt not our weakness, our cupidity!?For save we let the island men go free,?Those baffled and dislaureled ghosts?Will curse us from the lamentable coasts?Where walk the frustrate dead.?The cup of trembling shall be drained quite,?Eaten the sour bread of astonishment,?With ashes of the hearth shall be made white?Our hair, and wailing shall be in the tent;?Then on your guiltier head?Shall our intolerable self-disdain?Wreak suddenly its anger and its pain;?For manifest in that disastrous light?We shall discern the right?And do it, tardily. -- O ye who lead,?Take heed!?Blindness we may forgive, but baseness we will smite.
Candlemas. [Alice Brown]
O hearken, all ye little weeds?That lie beneath the snow,?(So low, dear hearts, in poverty so low!)
The sun hath risen for royal deeds,?A valiant wind the vanguard leads;?Now quicken ye, lest unborn seeds?Before ye rise and blow.
O furry living things, adream?On winter's drowsy breast,?(How rest ye there, how softly, safely rest!)
Arise and follow where a gleam?Of wizard gold unbinds the stream,?And all the woodland windings seem?With sweet expectance blest.
My birds, come back! the hollow sky?Is weary for your note.?(Sweet-throat, come back! O liquid, mellow throat!)
Ere May's soft minions hereward fly,?Shame on ye, laggards, to deny?The brooding breast, the sun-bright eye,?The tawny, shining coat!
The Unreturning. [Bliss Carman]
The old eternal spring once more?Comes back the sad eternal way,?With tender rosy light before?The going-out of day.
The great white moon across my door?A shadow in the twilight stirs;?But now forever comes no more?That wondrous look of Hers.
A Song in Spring. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.]
O little buds all bourgeoning with Spring,?You hold my winter in forgetfulness;?Without my window lilac branches swing,?Within my gate I hear a robin sing --?O little laughing blooms that lift and bless!
So blow the breezes in a soft caress,?Blowing my dreams upon a swallow's wing;?O little merry buds in dappled dress,?You fill my heart with very wantonness --?O little buds all bourgeoning with Spring!
May is building her House. [Richard Le Gallienne]
May is building her house. With apple blooms
She is roofing over the glimmering rooms;?Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams,
And, spinning all day at her secret looms,?With arras of leaves each wind-swayed wall?She pictureth over, and peopleth it all
With echoes and dreams,?And singing of streams.
May is building her house. Of petal and blade,?Of the roots of the oak, is the flooring made,
With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover,?Each small miracle over and over,?And tender, traveling green things strayed.
Her windows, the morning and evening star,?And her rustling doorways, ever ajar
With the coming and going?Of fair things blowing,?The thresholds of the four winds are.
May is building her house. From the dust of things?She is making the songs and the flowers and the wings;
From October's tossed and trodden gold?She is making the young year out of the old;?Yea: out of winter's flying sleet?She is making all the summer sweet,?And the brown leaves spurned of November's feet?She is changing back again to spring's.
Here is the Place where Loveliness keeps House. [Madison Cawein]
Here is the place where Loveliness keeps house,?Between the river and the wooded hills,?Within a valley where the Springtime spills?Her firstling wind-flowers under blossoming boughs:?Where Summer sits braiding her warm, white brows?With bramble-roses; and where Autumn fills?Her lap with asters; and old Winter frills?With crimson haw and hip his snowy blouse.?Here you may meet with Beauty. Here she sits?Gazing upon the moon, or all the day?Tuning a wood-thrush flute, remote, unseen:?Or when the storm is out, 't is she who flits?From rock to rock, a form of flying spray,?Shouting, beneath the leaves' tumultuous green.
Water Fantasy. [Fannie Stearns Davis]
O brown brook, O blithe brook, what will you say to me?If I take off my heavy shoon and wade you childishly?
O take them off, and come to me.?You shall not fall. Step merrily!
But, cool brook, but, quick brook, and what if I should float White-bodied in your pleasant pool, your bubbles at my throat?
If you are but a mortal maid,?Then I shall make you half afraid.?The water shall be dim and deep,?And silver fish shall lunge and leap?About you, coward mortal thing.?But if you come desiring?To win once more your naiadhood,?How you shall laugh and find me good --?My golden surfaces, my glooms,?My secret grottoes' dripping rooms,?My depths of warm wet emerald,?My mosses floating fold on fold!?And where I take the rocky leap?Like wild white water shall you sweep;?Like wild white water shall you cry,?Trembling and turning to the sky,?While all the thousand-fringed trees?Glimmer and glisten through the breeze.?I bid you come! Too long, too long,?You have forgot my undersong.?And this perchance you never knew:?E'en I, the brook, have need of you.?My naiads faded long ago, --?My little nymphs, that to and fro?Within my waters