Lyrics of Earth.
by Archibald Lampman.
TO MY MOTHER
Mother, to whose valiant will, Battling long ago, What the heaping years fulfil, Light and song, I owe; Send my little book a-field, Fronting praise or blame With the shining flag and shield Of your name.
THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE
It fell on a day I was happy, And the winds, the concave sky, The flowers and the beasts in the meadow Seemed happy even as I; And I stretched my hands to the meadow, To the bird, the beast, the tree: "Why are ye all so happy?"
I cried, and they answered me.
What sayest thou, Oh meadow, That stretches so wide, so far, That none can say how many Thy misty marguerites are?
And what say ye, red roses, That o"er the sun-blanched wall From your high black-shadowed trellis Like flame or blood-drops fall?
"We are born, we are reared, and we linger A various s.p.a.ce and die; We dream, and are bright and happy, But we cannot answer why."
What sayest thou, Oh shadow, That from the dreaming hill All down the broadening valley Liest so sharp and still?
And thou, Oh murmuring brooklet, Whereby in the noonday gleam The loosestrife burns like ruby, And the branched asters dream?
"We are born, we are reared, and we linger A various s.p.a.ce and die; We dream and are very happy, But we cannot answer why."
And then of myself I questioned, That like a ghost the while Stood from me and calmly answered, With slow and curious smile: "Thou art born as the flowers, and wilt linger Thine own short s.p.a.ce and die; Thou dream"st and art strangely happy, But thou canst not answer why."
G.o.d-SPEED TO THE SNOW
March is slain; the keen winds fly; Nothing more is thine to do; April kisses thee good-bye; Thou must haste and follow too; Silent friend that guarded well Withered things to make us glad, Shyest friend that could not tell Half the kindly thought he had.
Haste thee, speed thee, O kind snow; Down the dripping valleys go, From the fields and gleaming meadows, Where the slaying hours behold thee, From the forests whose slim shadows, Brown and leafless cannot fold thee, Through the cedar lands aflame With gold light that cleaves and quivers, Songs that winter may not tame, Drone of pines and laugh of rivers.
May thy pa.s.sing joyous be To thy father, the great sea, For the sun is getting stronger; Earth hath need of thee no longer; Go, kind snow, G.o.d-speed to thee!
APRIL IN THE HILLS
To-day the world is wide and fair With sunny fields of lucid air, And waters dancing everywhere; The snow is almost gone; The noon is builded high with light, And over heaven"s liquid height, In steady fleets serene and white, The happy clouds go on.
The channels run, the bare earth steams, And every hollow rings and gleams With jetting falls and dashing streams; The rivers burst and fill; The fields are full of little lakes, And when the romping wind awakes The water ruffles blue and shakes, And the pines roar on the hill.
The crows go by, a noisy throng; About the meadows all day long The sh.o.r.e-lark drops his brittle song; And up the leafless tree The nut-hatch runs, and nods, and clings; The bluebird dips with flashing wings, The robin flutes, the sparrow sings, And the swallows float and flee.
I break the spirit"s cloudy bands, A wanderer in enchanted lands, I feel the sun upon my hands; And far from care and strife The broad earth bids me forth. I rise With lifted brow and upward eyes.
I bathe my spirit in blue skies, And taste the springs of life.
I feel the tumult of new birth; I waken with the wakening earth; I match the bluebird in her mirth; And wild with wind and sun, A treasurer of immortal days, I roam the glorious world with praise, The hillsides and the woodland ways, Till earth and I are one.
FOREST MOODS
There is singing of birds in the deep wet woods, In the heart of the listening solitudes, Pewees, and thrushes, and sparrows, not few, And all the notes of their throats are true.
The thrush from the innermost ash takes on A tender dream of the treasured and gone; But the sparrow singeth with pride and cheer Of the might and light of the present and here.
There is shining of flowers in the deep wet woods, In the heart of the sensitive solitudes, The roseate bell and the lily are there, And every leaf of their sheaf is fair.
Careless and bold, without dream of woe, The trilliums scatter their flags snow; But the pale wood-daffodil covers her face, Agloom with the doom of a sorrowful race.
THE RETURN OF THE YEAR
Again the warm bare earth, the noon That hangs upon her healing scars, The midnight round, the great red moon, The mother with her brood of stars,
The mist-rack and the wakening rain Blown soft in many a forest way, The yellowing elm-trees, and again The blood-root in its sheath of gray.
The vesper-sparrow"s song, the stress Of yearning notes that gush and stream, The lyric joy, the tenderness, And once again the dream! the dream!
A touch of far-off joy and power, A something it is life to learn, Comes back to earth, and one short hour The glamours of the G.o.ds return.
This life"s old mood and cult of care Falls smitten by an older truth, And the gray world wins back to her The rapture of her vanished youth.
Dead thoughts revive, and he that heeds Shall hear, as by a spirit led, A song among the golden reeds: "The G.o.ds are vanished but not dead!"
For one short hour; unseen yet near, They haunt us, a forgotten mood, A glory upon mead and mere, A magic in the leafless wood.
At morning we shall catch the glow Of Dian"s quiver on the hill, And somewhere in the glades I know That Pan is at his piping still.
FAVORITES OF PAN
Once, long ago, before the G.o.ds Had left this earth, by stream and forest glade, Where the first plough upturned the clinging sods, Or the lost shepherd strayed,