The Poems of Henry Van Dyke | Page 9

all over the world.
Oh, the good hour, the kind hour,
The hour that calms the breast!

Little inn half-way on the road of the day,
Where it follows the turn
to the west!
There's a plentiful feast in the maple-tree shade,
The lilt of a song to
an old-fashioned tune,
The talk of a friend, or the kiss of a maid,
To
sweeten the cup that we drink to the noon.
Oh, the deep noon, the full noon,
Of all the day the best!
When the
blue sky burns, and the great sun turns
To his home by the way of the
west!
1906.
LIGHT BETWEEN THE TREES
Long, long, long the trail
Through the brooding forest-gloom,

Down the shadowy, lonely vale
Into silence, like a room
Where the
light of life has fled,
And the jealous curtains close
Round the
passionless repose
Of the silent dead.
Plod, plod, plod away,
Step by step in mouldering moss;
Thick
branches bar the day
Over languid streams that cross
Softly, slowly,
with a sound
Like a smothered weeping,
In their aimless creeping

Through enchanted ground.
"Yield, yield, yield thy quest,"
Whispers through the woodland deep;

"Come to me and be at rest;
I am slumber, I am sleep."
Then the
weary feet would fail,
But the never-daunted will
Urges "Forward,
forward still!
Press along the trail!"

Breast, breast, breast the slope
See, the path is growing steep.
Hark!
a little song of hope
Where the stream begins to leap.
Though the
forest, far and wide,
Still shuts out the bending blue,
We shall
finally win through,
Cross the long divide.
On, on, on we tramp!
Will the journey never end?
Over yonder lies
the camp;
Welcome waits us there, my friend.
Can we reach it ere
the night?
Upward, upward, never fear!
Look, the summit must be
near;
See the line of light!
Red, red, red the shine
Of the splendour in the west,
Glowing
through the ranks of pine,
Clear along the mountain-crest!
Long,
long, long the trail
Out of sorrow's lonely vale;
But at last the
traveller sees
Light between the trees!
March, 1904.
THE HERMIT THRUSH
O wonderful! How liquid clear
The molten gold of that ethereal tone,

Floating and falling through the wood alone,
A hermit-hymn
poured out for God to hear!
_O holy, holy, holy! Hyaline,
Long light, low light, glory of eventide!

Love far away, far up,--up,--love divine!
Little love, too, for ever,
ever near,
Warm love, earth love, tender love of mine,
In the leafy
dark where you hide,
You are mine,--mine,--mine!_
Ah, my belovèd, do you feel with me
The hidden virtue of that
melody,
The rapture and the purity of love,
The heavenly joy that
can not find the word?
Then, while we wait again to hear the bird,

Come very near to me, and do not move,--
Now, hermit of the
woodland, fill anew
The cool, green cup of air with harmony,
And
we will drink the wine of love with you.

May, 1908.
TURN O' THE TIDE
The tide flows in to the harbour,--
The bold tide, the gold tide, the
flood o' the sunlit sea,-- And the little ships riding at anchor,
Are
swinging and slanting their prows to the ocean, panting To lift their
wings to the wide wild air,
And venture a voyage they know not
where,--
To fly away and be free!
The tide runs out of the harbour,--
The low tide, the slow tide, the ebb
o' the moonlit bay,-- And the little ships rocking at anchor,
Are
rounding and turning their bows to the landward, yearning To breathe
the breath of the sun-warmed strand,
To rest in the lee of the high hill
land,--
To hold their haven and stay!
My heart goes round with the vessels,--
My wild heart, my child heart,
in love with the sea and the land,-- And the turn o' the tide passes
through it,
In rising and falling with mystical currents, calling
At
morn, to range where the far waves foam,
At night, to a harbour in
love's true home,
With the hearts that understand!
Seal Harbour, August 12, 1911.
SIERRA MADRE
O Mother mountains! billowing far to the snow-lands,
Robed in aërial
amethyst, silver, and blue,
Why do ye look so proudly down on the
lowlands?
What have their groves and gardens to do with you?
Theirs is the languorous charm of the orange and myrtle,
Theirs are
the fruitage and fragrance of Eden of old,-- Broad-boughed oaks in the
meadows fair and fertile,
Dark-leaved orchards gleaming with globes
of gold.
You, in your solitude standing, lofty and lonely,
Bear neither garden

nor grove on your barren breasts;
Rough is the rock-loving growth of
your canyons, and only Storm-battered pines and fir-trees cling to your
crests.
Why are ye throned so high, and arrayed in splendour
Richer than all
the fields at your feet can claim?
What is your right, ye rugged peaks,
to the tender
Queenly promise and pride of the mother-name?
Answered the mountains, dim in the distance dreaming:
"Ours are the
forests that treasure the riches of rain; Ours are the secret springs and
the rivulets gleaming
Silverly down through the manifold bloom of
the plain.
"Vain were the toiling of men in the dust of the dry land, Vain were the
ploughing and planting in waterless fields, Save for