The Second Book of Modern Verse | Page 6

legend, and all lore?Are in the dust forevermore.
Even as the growing grass?Up from the soil religions pass,?And the field that bears the rye?Bears parables and prophecy.?Out of the earth the poem grows?Like the lily, or the rose;?And all man is, or yet may be,?Is but herself in agony?Toiling up the steep ascent?Toward the complete accomplishment?When all dust shall be, the whole?Universe, one conscious soul.?Yea, the quiet and cool sod?Bears in her breast the dream of God.
If you would know what earth is, scan?The intricate, proud heart of man,?Which is the earth articulate,?And learn how holy and how great,?How limitless and how profound?Is the nature of the ground --?How without terror or demur?We may entrust ourselves to her?When we are wearied out, and lay?Our faces in the common clay.
For she is pity, she is love,?All wisdom she, all thoughts that move?About her everlasting breast?Till she gathers them to rest:?All tenderness of all the ages,?Seraphic secrets of the sages,?Vision and hope of all the seers,?All prayer, all anguish, and all tears?Are but the dust, that from her dream?Awakes, and knows herself supreme --?Are but earth when she reveals?All that her secret heart conceals?Down in the dark and silent loam,?Which is ourselves, asleep, at home.
Yea, and this, my poem, too,?Is part of her as dust and dew,?Wherein herself she doth declare?Through my lips, and say her prayer.
Trees. [Joyce Kilmer]
I think that I shall never see?A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest?Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,?And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear?A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;?Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,?But only God can make a tree.
Idealists. [Alfred Kreymborg]
Brother Tree:?Why do you reach and reach??Do you dream some day to touch the sky??Brother Stream:?Why do you run and run??Do you dream some day to fill the sea??Brother Bird:?Why do you sing and sing??Do you dream --?~Young Man:?Why do you talk and talk and talk?~
Blind. [Harry Kemp]
The Spring blew trumpets of color;?Her Green sang in my brain --?I heard a blind man groping?"Tap -- tap" with his cane;
I pitied him in his blindness;?But can I boast, "I see"??Perhaps there walks a spirit?Close by, who pities me, --
A spirit who hears me tapping?The five-sensed cane of mind?Amid such unguessed glories --?That I am worse than blind.
Yellow Warblers. [Katharine Lee Bates]
The first faint dawn was flushing up the skies?When, dreamland still bewildering mine eyes,?I looked out to the oak that, winter-long,?-- a winter wild with war and woe and wrong --?Beyond my casement had been void of song.
And lo! with golden buds the twigs were set,?Live buds that warbled like a rivulet?Beneath a veil of willows. Then I knew?Those tiny voices, clear as drops of dew,?Those flying daffodils that fleck the blue,
Those sparkling visitants from myrtle isles,?Wee pilgrims of the sun, that measure miles?Innumerable over land and sea?With wings of shining inches. Flakes of glee,?They filled that dark old oak with jubilee,
Foretelling in delicious roundelays?Their dainty courtships on the dipping sprays,?How they should fashion nests, mate helping mate,?Of milkweed flax and fern-down delicate?To keep sky-tinted eggs inviolate.
Listening to those blithe notes, I slipped once more?From lyric dawn through dreamland's open door,?And there was God, Eternal Life that sings,?Eternal joy, brooding all mortal things,?A nest of stars, beneath untroubled wings.
April -- North Carolina. [Harriet Monroe]
Would you not be in Tryon?Now that the spring is here,?When mocking-birds are praising?The fresh, the blossomy year?
Look -- on the leafy carpet?Woven of winter's browns?Iris and pink azaleas?Flutter their gaudy gowns.
The dogwood spreads white meshes --?So white and light and high --?To catch the drifting sunlight?Out of the cobalt sky.
The pointed beech and maple,?The pines, dark-tufted, tall,?Pattern with many colors?The mountain's purple wall.
Hark -- what a rushing torrent?Of crystal song falls sheer!?Would you not be in Tryon?Now that the spring is here?
Path Flower. [Olive Tilford Dargan]
A red-cap sang in Bishop's wood,?A lark o'er Golder's lane,?As I the April pathway trod?Bound west for Willesden.
At foot each tiny blade grew big?And taller stood to hear,?And every leaf on every twig?Was like a little ear.
As I too paused, and both ways tried?To catch the rippling rain, --?So still, a hare kept at my side?His tussock of disdain, --
Behind me close I heard a step,?A soft pit-pat surprise,?And looking round my eyes fell deep?Into sweet other eyes;
The eyes like wells, where sun lies too,?So clear and trustful brown,?Without a bubble warning you?That here's a place to drown.
"How many miles?" Her broken shoes?Had told of more than one.?She answered like a dreaming Muse,?"I came from Islington."
"So long a tramp?" Two gentle nods,?Then seemed to lift a wing,?And words fell soft as willow-buds,?"I came to find the Spring."
A timid voice, yet not afraid?In ways so sweet to roam,?As