The Miracle and Other Poems | Page 7

dead remembered--ay! long and well-- And the little children whose spirits dwell In God's green garden of asphodel.
Have you reached the country of all content, 0 souls we know, since the day you went From this time-worn world, where your years were spent?
Would you come back to the sun and the rain, The sweetness, the strife, the thing we call pain, And then unravel life's tangle again?
I lean to the dark--Hush!--was it a sigh? Or the painted vine-leaves that rustled by? Or only a night-bird's echoing cry?

THE GLEANER
As children gather daisies down green ways Mid butterflies and bees, To-day across the meadows of past days I gathered memories.
I stored my heart with harvest of lost hours-- With blossoms of spent years; Leaves that had known the sun of joy, and hours Drenched with the rain of tears.
And perfumes that were long ago distilled From April's pink and white, Again with all their old enchantment, filled My spirit with delight.
From out the limbo where lost roses go The place we may not see, With all its petals sweet and half-ablow, One rose returned to me.
Where falls the sunlight chequered by the shade On meadows of the past, I gathered blossoms that no sun can fade No winter wind can blast.

THE ROVER
Though I follow a trail to north or south, Though I travel east or west, There's a little house on a quiet road That my hidden heart loves best; And when my journeys are over and done, 'Tis there I will go to rest.
The snows have bleached it this many a year; The sun has painted it grey; The vines hold it close in their clinging arms; The shadows creep there to stay; And the wind goes calling through empty rooms For those who have gone away.
But the roses against the window-pane Are the roses I used to know; And the rain on the roof still sings the song It sang in the long ago, When I lay me down to sleep in a bed Little and white and low.
It is long since I bid it all good-bye, With young light-hearted disdain; I remember who stood at the door that day; Her tears fell fast as the rain; And I whistled a tune and waved my hand, But never went back again.
Toll I have paid at the gates of the world, The sand I know and the sea; I have taken the wide and open road, With steps unhindered and free; Yet, like a bell ringing down in my heart, My home is calling to me.

IN SOLITUDE
He is not desolate whose ship is sailing Over the mystery of an unknown sea, For some great love with faithfulness unfailing Will light the stars to bear him company.
Out in the silence of the mountain passes, The heart makes peace and liberty its own-- The wind that blows across the scented grasses Bringing the balm of sleep--comes not alone.
Beneath the vast illimitable spaces Where God has set His jewels in array, A man may pitch his tent in desert places Yet know that heaven is not so far away.
But in the city--in the lighted city-- Where gilded spires point toward the sky, And fluttering rags and hunger ask for pity, Grey Loneliness in cloth-of-gold, goes by.

THE ROBIN
Little brown brother, up in the apple tree, High on its blossom-rimmed branches aswing, Here where I listen earth-bound, it seems to me You are the voice of the spring.
Herald of Hope to the sad and faint-hearted, Piper the gold of the world cannot pay, Up from the limbo of things long departed Memories you bring me to-day.
You are the echo of songs that are over, You are the promise of songs that will come, You know the music, oh, light-winged rover, Sealed in the souls of the dumb.
All of the past that we wearily sigh for, All of the future for which our hearts long, All Love would live for, and all Love would die for Wordless, you weave in a song.
Little brown brother, up in the apple tree, My spirit answers each note that you sing, And while I listen--earth-bound--it seems to me You are the voice of the spring.

A SONG OF ROSES
'Tis time to sing of roses: of roses all ablow, To every vagrant passing breeze they dip a courtesy low, 'Tis time to sing of roses! for June is here, you know.
One song for true love's roses of sweetest deepest red, Some heart will wear you faithfully when life itself hath fled, And for the white rose sing a song--the white rose for the dead.
And ah! the yellow roses, of brightest, lightest gold, King Midas must have touched their leaves in mystic days of old, Or they were made of sunshine, and gilded, fold by fold.
And the roadside rose, sweet-briar, we would remember thee