The Poems of Henry Van Dyke | Page 7

garden planned?Fair as my Canadian land!?There I build my summer nest,?There I reign and there I rest,?While from dawn to dark I sing,?Happy kingdom! Lucky king!_
II
Back again, my little king!?Is your happy kingdom lost?To the rebel knave, Jack Frost??Have you felt the snow-flakes sting??Houseless, homeless in October,?Whither now? Your plight is sober,
Exiled king!
_Far to southward lie the regions?Where my loyal flower-legions?Hold possession of the year,?Filling every month with cheer.?Christmas wakes the winter rose;?New Year daffodils unclose;?Yellow jasmine through the wood?Flows in February flood,?Dropping from the tallest trees?Golden streams that never freeze.?Thither now I take my flight?Down the pathway of the night,?Till I see the southern moon?Glisten on the broad lagoon,?Where the cypress' dusky green,?And the dark magnolia's sheen,?Weave a shelter round my home.?There the snow-storms never come;?There the bannered mosses gray?Like a curtain gently sway,?Hanging low on every side?Round the covert where I bide,?Till the March azalea glows,?Royal red and heavenly rose,?Through the Carolina glade?Where my winter home is made.?There I hold my southern court,?Full of merriment and sport:?There I take my ease and sing,?Happy kingdom! Lucky king!_
III
Little boaster, vagrant king,?Neither north nor south is yours,?You've no kingdom that endures!?Wandering every fall and spring,?With your ruby crown so slender,?Are you only a Pretender,
Landless king?
_Never king by right divine?Ruled a richer realm than mine!?What are lands and golden crowns,?Armies, fortresses and towns,?Jewels, sceptres, robes and rings,--?What are these to song and wings??Everywhere that I can fly,?There I own the earth and sky;?Everywhere that I can sing.?There I'm happy as a king._
1900.
SCHOOL
I put my heart to school?In the world where men grow wise:?"Go out," I said, "and learn the rule;?Come back when you win a prize."
My heart came back again:?"Now where is the prize?" I cried.--?"The rule was false, and the prize was pain,?And the teacher's name was Pride."
I put my heart to school?In the woods where veeries sing?And brooks run clear and cool,?In the fields where wild flowers spring.
"And why do you stay so long?My heart, and where do you roam?"?The answer came with a laugh and a song,--?"I find this school is home."
April, 1901.
INDIAN SUMMER
A silken curtain veils the skies,?And half conceals from pensive eyes?The bronzing tokens of the fall;?A calmness broods upon the hills,?And summer's parting dream distils?A charm of silence over all.
The stacks of corn, in brown array,?Stand waiting through the tranquil day,?Like tattered wigwams on the plain;?The tribes that find a shelter there?Are phantom peoples, forms of air,?And ghosts of vanished joy and pain.
At evening when the crimson crest?Of sunset passes down the West,?I hear the whispering host returning;?On far-off fields, by elm and oak,?I see the lights, I smell the smoke,--?The Camp-fires of the Past are burning.
Tertius and Henry van Dyke.
November, 1903.
SPRING IN THE NORTH
I
Ah, who will tell me, in these leaden days,?Why the sweet Spring delays,?And where she hides,--the dear desire?Of every heart that longs?For bloom, and fragrance, and the ruby fire?Of maple-buds along the misty hills,?And that immortal call which fills?The waiting wood with songs??The snow-drops came so long ago,?It seemed that Spring was near!?But then returned the snow?With biting winds, and earth grew sere,?And sullen clouds drooped low?To veil the sadness of a hope deferred:?Then rain, rain, rain, incessant rain?Beat on the window-pane,?Through which I watched the solitary bird?That braved the tempest, buffeted and tossed?With rumpled feathers down the wind again.?Oh, were the seeds all lost?When winter laid the wild flowers in their tomb??I searched the woods in vain?For blue hepaticas, and trilliums white,?And trailing arbutus, the Spring's delight,?Starring the withered leaves with rosy bloom.?But every night the frost?To all my longing spoke a silent nay,?And told me Spring was far away.?Even the robins were too cold to sing,?Except a broken and discouraged note,--?Only the tuneful sparrow, on whose throat?Music has put her triple finger-print,?Lifted his head and sang my heart a hint,--?"Wait, wait, wait! oh, wait a while for Spring!"
II
But now, Carina, what divine amends?For all delay! What sweetness treasured up,?What wine of joy that blends?A hundred flavours in a single cup,?Is poured into this perfect day!?For look, sweet heart, here are the early flowers?That lingered on their way,?Thronging in haste to kiss the feet of May,?Entangled with the bloom of later hours,--?Anemones and cinque-foils, violets blue?And white, and iris richly gleaming through?The grasses of the meadow, and a blaze?Of butter-cups and daisies in the field,?Filling the air with praise,?As if a chime of golden bells had pealed!?The frozen songs within the breast?Of silent birds that hid in leafless woods,?Melt into rippling floods?Of gladness unrepressed.?Now oriole and bluebird, thrush and lark,?Warbler and wren and vireo,?Mingle their melody; the living spark?Of Love has touched the fuel of desire,?And every heart leaps up in singing fire.?It seems as if the land?Were breathing deep beneath the sun's caress,?Trembling with tenderness,?While all the woods expand,?In shimmering clouds of rose and gold and green,?To veil a joy