in the hush of sleeping things,?In some sky sanctuary withdrawn;?Your perfect song is too like pain,?And will not let me sleep again.
I think you must be more than bird,?A little creature of soft wings,?Not yours this deep and thrilling word--?Some morning planet 'tis that sings;?Surely from no small feathered throat?Wells that august, eternal note.
As some old language of the dead,?In one resounding syllable,?Says Rome and Greece and all is said--?A simple word a child may spell;?So in your liquid note impearled?Sings the long epic of the world.
Unfathomed sweetness of your song,?With ancient anguish at its core,?What womb of elemental wrong,?With shudder unimagined, bore?Peace so divine--what hell hath trod?This voice that softly talks with God!
All silence in one silver flower?Of speech that speaks not, save as speaks?The moon in heaven, yet hath power?To tell the soul the thing it seeks.?And pack, as by some wizard's art,?The whole within the finite part.
To you, sweet bird, one well might feign--?With such authority you sing?So clear, yet so profound, a strain?Into the simple ear of spring--?Some secret understanding given?Of the hid purposes of Heaven.
And all my life until this day,?And all my life until I die,?All joy and sorrow of the way,?Seem calling yonder in the sky;?And there is something the song saith?That makes me unafraid of death.
Now the slow light fills all the trees,?The world, before so still and strange,?With day's familiar presences,?Back to its common self must change,?And little gossip shapes of song?The porches of the morning throng.
Not yours with such as these to vie?That of the day's small business sing,?Voice of man's heart and of God's sky--?But O you make so deep a thing?Of joy, I dare not think of pain?Until I hear you sing again.
ALMA VENUS
Only a breath--hardly a breath! The shore?Is still a huddled alabaster floor?Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold,?Stern wreckage of the fiercely frozen wave,?Gleaming in mailed wastes of white and gold;?As though the sea, in an enchanted grave,?Of fearful crystal locked, no more shall stir?Softly, all lover, to the April moon:?Hardly a breath! yet was I now aware?Of a most delicate balm upon the air,?Almost a voice that almost whispered "soon"!
Not of the earth it was--no living thing?Moves in the iron landscape far or near,?Saving, in raucous flight, the winter crow,?Staining the whiteness with its ebon wing,?Or silver-sailing gull, or 'mid the drear?Rock cedars, like a summer soul astray,?A lone red squirrel makes believe to play,?Nibbling the frozen snow.
Not of the earth, that hath not scent nor song,?Nor hope of aught, nor memory, nor dream,?Nor any speech upon its sullen tongue,?Nor any liberty of running stream;?Not of the earth, that hath forgot to smile;?But, strangely wafted o'er the frozen sea,?As from some hidden Cytherean isle,?Veil within veil, the sweetness came to me.
Beyond the heaving glitter of the floe,?The free blue water sparkles to the sky,?Losing itself in brightness; to and fro?Long bands of mists trail luminously by,?And, as behind a screen, on the sea's rim?Hid softnesses of sunshine come and go,?And shadowy coasts in sudden glory swim--?O land made out of distance and desire!--?With ports of mystic pearl and crests of fire.
Thence, somewhere in the spaces of the sea,?Travelled this halcyon breath presaging Spring;?Over the water even now secretly?She maketh ready in her hands to bring?Blossom and blade and wing;?And soon the wave shall ripple with her feet,?And her wild hair be blown about the skies,
And with her bosom all the world grow sweet,?And blue with the sea-blue of her deep eyes?The meadow, like another sea, shall flower,?And all the earth be song and singing shower;?While watching, in some hollow of the grass?By the sea's edge, I may behold her stand,?With rosy feet, upon the yellow sand,?Pause in a dream, and to the woodland pass.
"AH! DID YOU EVER HEAR THE SPRING"
Ah! did you ever hear the Spring?Calling you through the snow,?Or hear the little blackbird sing?Inside its egg--or go?To that green land where grass begins,?Each tiny seed, to grow?
O have you heard what none has heard,?Or seen what none has seen;?O have you been to that strange land?Where no one else has been!
APRIL
April, half-clad in flowers and showers,?Walks, like a blossom, o'er the land;?She smiles at May, and laughing takes?The rain and sunshine hand in hand.
So gay the dancing of her feet,?So like a garden her soft breath,?So sweet the smile upon her face,?She charms the very heart of death.
The young moon in a trance she holds?Captive in clouds of orchard bloom,?She snaps her fingers at the grave,?And laughs into the face of doom.
Yet in her gladness lurks a fear,?In all her mirth there breathes a sigh,?So soon her pretty flowers are gone--?And ah! she is too young to die!
MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE
May is building her house. With apple blooms?She is roofing over the glimmering rooms;?Of the oak and the beech hath she
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the
Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.