Listen! The dancing of unseen leaves.
A drowsy swallow stirs in the eaves.
Only a maiden is sorrowing.
"T is night and spring, Sweetheart, and spring!
Starfire lights your heart"s blossoming.
In the intimate dark there"s never an ear, Though the tulips stand on tiptoe to hear, So give; ripe fruit must shrivel or fall.
As you are mine, Sweetheart, give all!
Starfire sparkles, your coronal.
Fragment
What is poetry? Is it a mosaic Of coloured stones which curiously are wrought Into a pattern? Rather gla.s.s that"s taught By patient labor any hue to take And glowing with a sumptuous splendor, make Beauty a thing of awe; where sunbeams caught, Trans.m.u.ted fall in sheafs of rainbows fraught With storied meaning for religion"s sake.
Loon Point
Softly the water ripples Against the canoe"s curving side, Softly the birch trees rustle Flinging over us branches wide.
Softly the moon glints and glistens As the water takes and leaves, Like golden ears of corn Which fall from loose-bound sheaves,
Or like the snow-white petals Which drop from an overblown rose, When Summer ripens to Autumn And the freighted year must close.
From the sh.o.r.e come the scents of a garden, And between a gap in the trees A proud white statue glimmers In cold, disdainful ease.
The child of a southern people, The thought of an alien race, What does she in this pale, northern garden, How reconcile it with her grace?
But the moon in her wayward beauty Is ever and always the same, As lovely as when upon Latmos She watched till Endymion came.
Through the water the moon writes her legends In light, on the smooth, wet sand; They endure for a moment, and vanish, And no one may understand.
All round us the secret of Nature Is telling itself to our sight, We may guess at her meaning but never Can know the full mystery of night.
But her power of enchantment is on us, We bow to the spell which she weaves, Made up of the murmur of waves And the manifold whisper of leaves.
Summer
Some men there are who find in nature all Their inspiration, hers the sympathy Which spurs them on to any great endeavor, To them the fields and woods are closest friends, And they hold dear communion with the hills; The voice of waters soothes them with its fall, And the great winds bring healing in their sound.
To them a city is a prison house Where pent up human forces labour and strive, Where beauty dwells not, driven forth by man; But where in winter they must live until Summer gives back the s.p.a.ces of the hills.
To me it is not so. I love the earth And all the gifts of her so lavish hand: Sunshine and flowers, rivers and rushing winds, Thick branches swaying in a winter storm, And moonlight playing in a boat"s wide wake; But more than these, and much, ah, how much more, I love the very human heart of man.
Above me spreads the hot, blue mid-day sky, Far down the hillside lies the sleeping lake Lazily reflecting back the sun, And scarcely ruffled by the little breeze Which wanders idly through the nodding ferns.
The blue crest of the distant mountain, tops The green crest of the hill on which I sit; And it is summer, glorious, deep-toned summer, The very crown of nature"s changing year When all her surging life is at its full.
To me alone it is a time of pause, A void and silent s.p.a.ce between two worlds, When inspiration lags, and feeling sleeps, Gathering strength for efforts yet to come.
For life alone is creator of life, And closest contact with the human world Is like a lantern shining in the night To light me to a knowledge of myself.
I love the vivid life of winter months In constant intercourse with human minds, When every new experience is gain And on all sides we feel the great world"s heart; The pulse and throb of life which makes us men!
"To-morrow to Fresh Woods and Pastures New"
As for a moment he stands, in hardy masculine beauty, Poised on the fircrested rock, over the pool which below him Gleams in the wavering sunlight, waiting the shock of his plunging.
So for a moment I stand, my feet planted firm in the present, Eagerly scanning the future which is so soon to possess me.
The Way
At first a mere thread of a footpath half blotted out by the gra.s.ses Sweeping triumphant across it, it wound between hedges of roses Whose blossoms were poised above leaves as pond lilies float on the water, While hidden by bloom in a hawthorn a bird filled the morning with singing.
It widened a highway, majestic, stretching ever to distant horizons, Where shadows of tree-branches wavered, vague outlines invaded by sunshine; No sound but the wind as it whispered the secrets of earth to the flowers, And the hum of the yellow bees, honey-laden and dusty with pollen.
And Summer said, "Come, follow onward, with no thought save the longing to wander, The wind, and the bees, and the flowers, all singing the great song of Nature, Are minstrels of change and of promise, they herald the joy of the Future."
Later the solitude vanished, confused and distracted the road Where many were seeking and jostling. Left behind were the trees and the flowers, The half-realized beauty of quiet, the sacred unconscious communing.
And now he is come to a river, a line of gray, sullen water, Not blue and splashing, but dark, rolling somberly on to the ocean.
But on the far side is a city whose windows flame gold in the sunset.
It lies fair and shining before him, a gem set betwixt sky and water, And spanning the river a bridge, frail promise to longing desire, Flung by man in his infinite courage, across the stern force of the water; And he looks at the river and fears, the bridge is so slight, yet he ventures His life to its fragile keeping, if it fails the waves will engulf him.
O Arches! be strong to uphold him, and bear him across to the city, The beautiful city whose spires still glow with the fires of sunset!
Diya {original t.i.tle is Greek, Delta-iota-psi-alpha}
Look, Dear, how bright the moonlight is to-night!
See where it casts the shadow of that tree Far out upon the gra.s.s. And every gust Of light night wind comes laden with the scent Of opening flowers which never bloom by day: Night-scented stocks, and four-o"clocks, and that Pale yellow disk, upreared on its tall stalk, The evening primrose, comrade of the stars.
It seems as though the garden which you love Were like a swinging censer, its incense Floating before us as a reverent act To sanctify and bless our night of love.
Tell me once more you love me, that "t is you Yes, really you, I touch, so, with my hand; And tell me it is by your own free will That you are here, and that you like to be Just here, with me, under this sailing pine.
I need to hear it often for my heart Doubts naturally, and finds it hard to trust.
Ah, Dearest, you are good to love me so, And yet I would not have it goodness, rather Excess of selfishness in you to need Me through and through, as flowers need the sun.
I wonder can it really be that you And I are here alone, and that the night Is full of hours, and all the world asleep, And none can call to you to come away; For you have given all yourself to me Making me gentle by your willingness.
Has your life too been waiting for this time, Not only mine the sharpness of this joy?
Dear Heart, I love you, worship you as though I were a priest before a holy shrine.
I"m glad that you are beautiful, although Were you not lovely still I needs must love; But you are all things, it must have been so For otherwise it were not you. Come, close; When you are in the circle of my arm Faith grows a mountain and I take my stand Upon its utmost top. Yes, yes, once more Kiss me, and let me feel you very near Wanting me wholly, even as I want you.
Have years behind been dark? Will those to come Bring unguessed sorrows into our two lives?