The Poems of Henry Van Dyke | Page 7

Never borrow
Idle sorrow;
Drop it!
Cover it up!
Hold your cup!
Joy will fill it,
Don't spill it,

Steady, be ready,
Good luck!_
1899.
THE RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET
I
Where's your kingdom, little king?
Where the land you call your own,

Where your palace and your throne?
Fluttering lightly on the wing

Through the blossom-world of May,
Whither lies your royal way,
Little king?
_Far to northward lies a land
Where the trees together stand
Closely
as the blades of wheat
When the summer is complete.
Rolling like
an ocean wide
Over vale and mountainside,
Balsam, hemlock,
spruce and pine,--
All those mighty trees are mine.
There's a river
flowing free,--
All its waves belong to me.
There's a lake so clear
and bright
Stars shine out of it all night;
Rowan-berries round it
spread
Like a belt of coral red.
Never royal 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