The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems | Page 5

make
Their
lyric vows.
O the beating, breaking
Heart of things,
The pulse and passion--

How it sings.
How it burns and flames
And showers,
Lusts and laughs, flowers

And deflowers.
III
Summer came,
Rose on rose;
Leaf on leaf,
Summer goes.
Summer came,
Song on song;
O summer had
A golden tongue.

Summer goes,
Sigh on sigh;
Not a rose
Sees him die.
TO A WILD BIRD
Wild bird, I stole you from your nest,
And cannot find your nest
again;
To hear you chirp a little while
I wrung your mother's heart
with pain.
And here you sit and droop and die,
Nor any love that I can bring

Wins me forgiveness for the wrong,
Nor any kindness makes you
sing.
"I CROSSED THE ORCHARD WALKING HOME"
I crossed the orchard, walking home,
The rising moon was at my
back,
The apples and the moonlight fell
Together on the railroad
track.
Then, speeding through the evening dews,
A dozen lighted windows
glide--
The East-bound flyer for New York,
Soft as a magic-lantern
slide.
New York! on through the sleeping flowers,
Through echoing
midnight on to noon;
How strange that yonder is New York,
And
here such silence and the moon.
"I MEANT TO DO MY WORK TO-DAY"
I meant to do my work to-day--
But a brown bird sang in the
apple-tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves
were calling me.
And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and
fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand--
So what could I do
but laugh and go?
"HOW FAST THE YEAR IS GOING BY"

How fast the year is going by!
Love, it will be September soon;
O
let us make the best of June.
Already, love, it is July;
The rose and
honeysuckle go,
And all too soon will come the snow.
Dark berries take the place of flowers,
Of summer August still
remains,
Then sad September with her rains.
O love, how short a
year is ours--
So swiftly does the summer fly,
Scarce time is left to
say goodbye.
AUGUST MOONLIGHT
The solemn light behind the barns,
The rising moon, the cricket's call,

The August night, and you and I--
What is the meaning of it all!
Has it a meaning, after all?
Or is it one of Nature's lies,
That net of
beauty that she casts
Over Life's unsuspecting eyes?
That web of beauty that she weaves
For one strange purpose of her
own,--
For this the painted butterfly,
For this the rose--for this
alone!
Strange repetition of the rose,
And strange reiterated call
Of bird
and insect, man and maid,--
Is that the meaning of it all?
If it means nothing, after all!
And nothing lives, except to die--
It is
enough--that solemn light
Behind the barns, and you and I.
TO A ROSE
O rose! forbear to flaunt yourself,
All bloom and dew--
I once,
sad-hearted as I am,
Was young as you.
But, one by one, the petals fell
Earthward to rot;
Only a berry
testifies
A rose forgot.
INVITATION

Unless you come while still the world is green,
A place of birds and
the blue dreaming sea,
In vain has all the singing summer been,

Unless you come, and share it all with me.
Ah! come, ere August flames its heart away,
Ere, like a golden
widow, autumn goes
Across the woodlands, sad with thoughts of
May,
An aster in her bosom for a rose.
SUMMER GOING
Crickets calling,
Apples falling.
Summer dying,
Life is flying.
So soon over--
Love and lover.
AUTUMN TREASURE
Who will gather with me the fallen year,
This drift of forgotten
forsaken leaves,
Ah! who give ear
To the sigh October heaves
At
summer's passing by!
Who will come walk with me
On this Persian
carpet of purple and gold
The weary autumn weaves,
And be as sad
as I?
Gather the wealth of the fallen rose,
And watch how the
memoried south wind blows
Old dreams and old faces upon the air,

And all things fair.
WINTER
Winter, some call thee fair,
Yea! flatter thy cold face
With vain
compare
Of all thy glittering ways
And magic snows
With
summer and the rose;
Thy phantom flowers
And fretted traceries

Of crystal breath,
Thy frozen and fantastic art of death,
With April
as she showers
The violet on the leas,
And bares her bosom
In the
blossoming trees,
And dances on her way
To laugh with May--

Winter that hath no bird
To sing thee, and no bloom

To deck thy

brow:
To me thou art an empty haunted room,
Where once the
music
Of the summer stirred,
And all the dancers
Fallen on
silence now.
THE MYSTIC FRIENDS
I nothing did all yesterday
But listen to the singing rain
On roof and
weeping window-pane,
And, 'whiles I'd watch the flying spray
And
smoking breakers in the bay:
Nothing but this did I all day--
Save turn anon to trim the fire
With a new log, and mark it roar

And flame with yellow tongues for more
To feed its mystical desire.

No other comrades save these three,
The fire, the rain, and the wild
sea,
All day from morn till night had I--
Yea! and the wind, with fitful cry,

Like a hound whining at the door.
Yet seemed it, as to sleep I turned,
Pausing a little while to pray,

That not mis-spent had been the day;
That I had somehow wisdom
learned
From those wild waters in the bay,
And from the fire as it