I
MAY DAY IN MARCH
March with her madcap winds, March with her weather,
Has vanished, — in her place
Has come such day of grace
As May might bring: you wonder whether
'Tis all a dream,
A thing light like a feather,
Blown by a breath to nothingness again.
Birds blithely chirp, buds ope to tell their joy
And from earth's aged mood there wells —
Hark, how it wells and swells! —
The clear song of a boy.
The robins' rhyme,
The green of willows by the turbulent brook,
The pink and white of orchard trees,
The odorous arbutus in her nook,
All, all of these
Do testify their gladness, — magic time!
A month before her coming-in, the earth,
The dear old foster mother, fain of life,
To beauty and to hope has given birth,
Twin children of her travail and her strife;
And man walks in a very trance of bliss,
Remembering, remembering
That only yesterday
(It seems a world away!)
Nor wight dared sing
Nor any earthy thing
The tiniest touch of green and white display.
But now, the vernal kiss,
And lo, the spring, the spring!
Divine foreteller of eternal summer,
Hail and farewell!
Before thy time, thou art a comer
Bearing a promise and a pledge: —
That when the frost returns and May shall seem
The semblance of a dream,
Our faith may yet be firm; and on the edge
Of rigorous winter we may know thee near,
Thou mystic miracle!
Even as an inland wanderer may hear,
Far from the sea voice, as he straining yearns
To catch the sound of billows, — faint but clear, —
The multitudinous murmur of the brine,
And doth divine
How ever round all lands the water-sphere,
Open and splendid, singing as she turns,
Past plumed capes of pine,
Beside bland meadows or by dreary sands,
Or skirting cliffs sun-soaked and keen ashine, —
Circles all shores and lifts her moving tides
Godward, where peace abides.
May day in March, the soul shall find thee still
A foretaste and a happy prophecy
Of that far-off, that wished-for day
When beauty conquers, winter fades away
Into the perfectness of halcyon weather
And the world wonders whether
'Twas ever anything on earth but May!
II
THE SPRING RETURNS
T HE spring returns! Not as a strange newcomer,
But an old friend, who, just before the summer,
Comes with glad tidings, smiles a rosy smile;
Yet, in her words and ways, in all her bearing,
She seems like one from some far outland faring,
That may but linger here a little while.
Then in the orchards, blossoms pink or pearly,
Apple or cherry trees are blooming early;
You glimpse the fresh-sprung grass the leaves between.
The birds begin their tentative, sweet speeches,
And all along the winding river reaches
The willows show a soft, ineffable green.
But yesterday, the woods were drear, to-morrow
They will have all forgot their winter sorrow,
The sap will run, the rigor pass away;
And in the open, all earth's simple creatures
Take heart of hope and don their sun-bright features,
While hill and hollow echo with their play.
And when spring flits, and fuller flush of splendor
Usurps the delicate hues and blushes tender,
Because proud summer mounts her throne again:
Then in the moments twilight-touched and tristful,
Memory will brood these dawns and evenings wistful,
The sad sweet mood of a young soul in pain:
Sweet for its beauty, sad, because it never
May rest, but gypsy-like fleets on for ever.
III
THE SYMBOL
W HAT is the symbol underneath it all,
The secret message of the throb of things:
The flower tossings and the whirl of wings,
The glow and scent when June makes carnival?
'Tis like a loved lost word of some old speech
Man has forgotten yet can almost reach.
Listen! The sap doth murmur it, the rain
Chants it in sibilant monotone, the breeze
Lifting a voice among the fluttered trees,
Takes up the song, repeats it once again;
And all the movement in the summer grass
Seems pulsing to express it ere it pass.
Ever and alway, iterant and low,
The whisper and the hint, the half-untold
Suggestion that is as the ages old,
Yet fresh-faced now as in the long ago:
" Seek, ye shall find, for you and I are one,
Bound each to other since the years begun.
" You hear the call of kinship in my voice,
My very breathing makes me part of you;
The gifts I offer are a residue
Of your inheritance and natural choice;
Man is not man who hath not eye to see
My luminous gloss on Nature's mystery.
" Rich-languaged, fraught with memories and dreams,
I lure you back in sacred moments when
You learn, oblivious to the lore of men,
The lesson of the forests, fields and streams:
Deep at my heart, deeper than all my mirth,
The ever-eloquent meaning of the earth. "
In syllables of beauty, yea, with words
That move like music through the summer ways,
Nature doth speak, and in her every phrase, —
The choiring rivers and the lyric birds, —
She draws us from false gods, and our release
Is certified by joy and love and peace.
IV
HORN AND VIOLIN
I N the autumn, in the weather
Golden, bronzed, and rich with sighs,
When we paced the lanes together,
Dreamings deep were in your eyes.
Then, O Love, 'twas like the sounding
Of a mellow horn that blows
Veiled but vibrant, far-resounding
Through the paths the woodland knows.
But with May the magic changes,
And the music pants and pleads:
Like a violin it ranges
All the hopes and pent desires,
All the daring and the doubt;
Like to strong plucked strings, the fires
Of our spirits rushing out.
In the autumn, love seemed sober;
Dear, 'tis now a passioned thing;
As the horn is for October,
But the violin for spring.
V
ROAD SONG
T HE world is wide and the wind smells sweet,
Wine-of-my-Life is the thought of day.
The journey-lure and the footfall fleet,
Over the hills and far away!
Joy of the open, joy of the wood:
Sun-drenched meadow and pungent pine;
One with the vagrant brotherhood
Under the vast sky, comrade mine!
The slanting shadows, too, are fair,
Keen is the afternoon in zest;
Cool to the brow is the balmy air;
At the end of the road is the Inn of Rest.
There, from the travel stains washed clean,
Better to sit a while than roam:
Friends forgather for talk, I ween,
All of the wanderers trooping home.
The sun is up, and the blithe birds call;
Then, Ho for the Inn that welcomes all!
VI
AS FLUTES OF ARCADY
T HE purity of water and the peace
Of wind-still air: the placid scent of pines,
Warming my heart as with the waft of wines;
The murmuring of hidden brooks, the fleece
Of foam-topped rivers, and the splendid space
Of sky above, with all its interlace
Of blue and white and gold, — Oh, these to me
Do plead as plead the flutes of Arcady,
Bidding my sorry stressfulness to cease.
For then I take for truth the poet's dream:
There's naught in all the world save only good;
Little, fair children, love no parting kills,
Romance through the tree-branches soft agleam,
Beauty that lies await by field and wood,
And hero-deeds along a hundred hills!
MAY DAY IN MARCH
March with her madcap winds, March with her weather,
Has vanished, — in her place
Has come such day of grace
As May might bring: you wonder whether
'Tis all a dream,
A thing light like a feather,
Blown by a breath to nothingness again.
Birds blithely chirp, buds ope to tell their joy
And from earth's aged mood there wells —
Hark, how it wells and swells! —
The clear song of a boy.
The robins' rhyme,
The green of willows by the turbulent brook,
The pink and white of orchard trees,
The odorous arbutus in her nook,
All, all of these
Do testify their gladness, — magic time!
A month before her coming-in, the earth,
The dear old foster mother, fain of life,
To beauty and to hope has given birth,
Twin children of her travail and her strife;
And man walks in a very trance of bliss,
Remembering, remembering
That only yesterday
(It seems a world away!)
Nor wight dared sing
Nor any earthy thing
The tiniest touch of green and white display.
But now, the vernal kiss,
And lo, the spring, the spring!
Divine foreteller of eternal summer,
Hail and farewell!
Before thy time, thou art a comer
Bearing a promise and a pledge: —
That when the frost returns and May shall seem
The semblance of a dream,
Our faith may yet be firm; and on the edge
Of rigorous winter we may know thee near,
Thou mystic miracle!
Even as an inland wanderer may hear,
Far from the sea voice, as he straining yearns
To catch the sound of billows, — faint but clear, —
The multitudinous murmur of the brine,
And doth divine
How ever round all lands the water-sphere,
Open and splendid, singing as she turns,
Past plumed capes of pine,
Beside bland meadows or by dreary sands,
Or skirting cliffs sun-soaked and keen ashine, —
Circles all shores and lifts her moving tides
Godward, where peace abides.
May day in March, the soul shall find thee still
A foretaste and a happy prophecy
Of that far-off, that wished-for day
When beauty conquers, winter fades away
Into the perfectness of halcyon weather
And the world wonders whether
'Twas ever anything on earth but May!
II
THE SPRING RETURNS
T HE spring returns! Not as a strange newcomer,
But an old friend, who, just before the summer,
Comes with glad tidings, smiles a rosy smile;
Yet, in her words and ways, in all her bearing,
She seems like one from some far outland faring,
That may but linger here a little while.
Then in the orchards, blossoms pink or pearly,
Apple or cherry trees are blooming early;
You glimpse the fresh-sprung grass the leaves between.
The birds begin their tentative, sweet speeches,
And all along the winding river reaches
The willows show a soft, ineffable green.
But yesterday, the woods were drear, to-morrow
They will have all forgot their winter sorrow,
The sap will run, the rigor pass away;
And in the open, all earth's simple creatures
Take heart of hope and don their sun-bright features,
While hill and hollow echo with their play.
And when spring flits, and fuller flush of splendor
Usurps the delicate hues and blushes tender,
Because proud summer mounts her throne again:
Then in the moments twilight-touched and tristful,
Memory will brood these dawns and evenings wistful,
The sad sweet mood of a young soul in pain:
Sweet for its beauty, sad, because it never
May rest, but gypsy-like fleets on for ever.
III
THE SYMBOL
W HAT is the symbol underneath it all,
The secret message of the throb of things:
The flower tossings and the whirl of wings,
The glow and scent when June makes carnival?
'Tis like a loved lost word of some old speech
Man has forgotten yet can almost reach.
Listen! The sap doth murmur it, the rain
Chants it in sibilant monotone, the breeze
Lifting a voice among the fluttered trees,
Takes up the song, repeats it once again;
And all the movement in the summer grass
Seems pulsing to express it ere it pass.
Ever and alway, iterant and low,
The whisper and the hint, the half-untold
Suggestion that is as the ages old,
Yet fresh-faced now as in the long ago:
" Seek, ye shall find, for you and I are one,
Bound each to other since the years begun.
" You hear the call of kinship in my voice,
My very breathing makes me part of you;
The gifts I offer are a residue
Of your inheritance and natural choice;
Man is not man who hath not eye to see
My luminous gloss on Nature's mystery.
" Rich-languaged, fraught with memories and dreams,
I lure you back in sacred moments when
You learn, oblivious to the lore of men,
The lesson of the forests, fields and streams:
Deep at my heart, deeper than all my mirth,
The ever-eloquent meaning of the earth. "
In syllables of beauty, yea, with words
That move like music through the summer ways,
Nature doth speak, and in her every phrase, —
The choiring rivers and the lyric birds, —
She draws us from false gods, and our release
Is certified by joy and love and peace.
IV
HORN AND VIOLIN
I N the autumn, in the weather
Golden, bronzed, and rich with sighs,
When we paced the lanes together,
Dreamings deep were in your eyes.
Then, O Love, 'twas like the sounding
Of a mellow horn that blows
Veiled but vibrant, far-resounding
Through the paths the woodland knows.
But with May the magic changes,
And the music pants and pleads:
Like a violin it ranges
All the hopes and pent desires,
All the daring and the doubt;
Like to strong plucked strings, the fires
Of our spirits rushing out.
In the autumn, love seemed sober;
Dear, 'tis now a passioned thing;
As the horn is for October,
But the violin for spring.
V
ROAD SONG
T HE world is wide and the wind smells sweet,
Wine-of-my-Life is the thought of day.
The journey-lure and the footfall fleet,
Over the hills and far away!
Joy of the open, joy of the wood:
Sun-drenched meadow and pungent pine;
One with the vagrant brotherhood
Under the vast sky, comrade mine!
The slanting shadows, too, are fair,
Keen is the afternoon in zest;
Cool to the brow is the balmy air;
At the end of the road is the Inn of Rest.
There, from the travel stains washed clean,
Better to sit a while than roam:
Friends forgather for talk, I ween,
All of the wanderers trooping home.
The sun is up, and the blithe birds call;
Then, Ho for the Inn that welcomes all!
VI
AS FLUTES OF ARCADY
T HE purity of water and the peace
Of wind-still air: the placid scent of pines,
Warming my heart as with the waft of wines;
The murmuring of hidden brooks, the fleece
Of foam-topped rivers, and the splendid space
Of sky above, with all its interlace
Of blue and white and gold, — Oh, these to me
Do plead as plead the flutes of Arcady,
Bidding my sorry stressfulness to cease.
For then I take for truth the poet's dream:
There's naught in all the world save only good;
Little, fair children, love no parting kills,
Romance through the tree-branches soft agleam,
Beauty that lies await by field and wood,
And hero-deeds along a hundred hills!