Trees and Other Poems | Page 4

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.
Stars
(For the Rev. James J. Daly, S. J.)
Bright stars, yellow stars, flashing through the air,?Are you errant strands of Lady Mary's hair??As she slits the cloudy veil and bends down through,?Do you fall across her cheeks and over heaven too?
Gay stars, little stars, you are little eyes,?Eyes of baby angels playing in the skies.?Now and then a winged child turns his merry face?Down toward the spinning world -- what a funny place!
Jesus Christ came from the Cross (Christ receive my soul!)?In each perfect hand and foot there was a bloody hole.?Four great iron spikes there were, red and never dry,?Michael plucked them from the Cross and set them in the sky.
Christ's Troop, Mary's Guard, God's own men,?Draw your swords and strike at Hell and strike again.?Every steel-born spark that flies where God's battles are,?Flashes past the face of God, and is a star.
Old Poets
(For Robert Cortez Holliday)
If I should live in a forest?And sleep underneath a tree,?No grove of impudent saplings?Would make a home for me.
I'd go where the old oaks gather,?Serene and good and strong,?And they would not sigh and tremble?And vex me with a song.
The pleasantest sort of poet?Is the poet who's old and wise,?With an old white beard and wrinkles?About his kind old eyes.
For these young flippertigibbets?A-rhyming their hours away?They won't be still like honest men?And listen to what you say.
The young poet screams forever?About his sex and his soul;?But the old man listens, and smokes his pipe,?And polishes its bowl.
There should be a club for poets?Who have come to seventy year.?They should sit in a great hall drinking?Red wine and golden beer.
They would shuffle in of an evening,?Each one to his cushioned seat,?And there would be mellow talking?And silence rich and sweet.
There is no peace to be taken?With poets who are young,?For they worry about the wars to be fought?And the songs that must be sung.
But the old man knows that he's in his chair?And that God's on His throne in the sky.?So he sits by the fire in comfort?And he lets the world spin by.
Delicatessen
Why is that wanton gossip Fame?So dumb about this man's affairs??Why do we titter at his name?Who come to buy his curious wares?
Here is a shop of wonderment.?From every land has come a prize;?Rich spices from the Orient,?And fruit that knew Italian skies,
And figs that ripened by the sea?In Smyrna, nuts from hot Brazil,?Strange pungent meats from Germany,?And currants from a Grecian hill.
He is the lord of goodly things?That make the poor man's table gay,?Yet of his worth no minstrel sings?And on his tomb there is no bay.
Perhaps he lives and dies unpraised,?This trafficker in humble sweets,?Because his little shops are raised?By thousands in the city streets.
Yet stars in greater numbers shine,?And violets in millions grow,?And they in many a golden line?Are sung, as every child must know.
Perhaps Fame thinks his worried eyes,?His wrinkled, shrewd, pathetic face,?His shop, and all he sells and buys?Are desperately commonplace.
Well, it is true he has no sword?To dangle at his booted knees.?He leans across a slab of board,?And draws his knife and slices cheese.
He never heard of chivalry,?He longs for no heroic times;?He thinks of pickles, olives, tea,?And dollars, nickles, cents and dimes.
His world has narrow walls, it seems;?By counters is his soul confined;?His wares are all his hopes and dreams,?They are the fabric of his mind.
Yet -- in a room above the store?There is a woman -- and a child?Pattered just now across the floor;?The shopman looked at him and smiled.
For, once he thrilled with high romance?And tuned to love his eager voice.?Like any cavalier of France?He wooed the maiden of his choice.
And now deep in his weary heart?Are sacred flames that whitely burn.?He has of Heaven's grace a part?Who loves, who is beloved in turn.
And when the long day's work is done,?(How slow the leaden minutes ran!)?Home, with his wife and little son,?He is no huckster, but a man!
And there are those who grasp his hand,?Who drink with him and wish him well.?O in no drear and lonely land?Shall he who honors friendship dwell.
And in his little shop, who knows?What bitter games of war are played??Why, daily on each corner grows?A foe to rob him of his trade.
He fights, and for his fireside's sake;?He fights for clothing and for bread:?The lances of his foemen make?A steely halo round his head.
He decks his window artfully,?He haggles over paltry sums.?In this strange field his war must be?And by such blows his triumph comes.
What if no trumpet sounds to call?His armed legions to his side??What if, to no ancestral