spring

Beside the brook the boy reclined
And wove his flowery wreath,
And to the waves the wreath consigned--
The waves that danced beneath.
"So fleet mine hours," he sighed, "away
Like waves that restless flow:
And so my flowers of youth decay
Like those that float below."

"Ask not why I, alone on earth,
Am sad in life's young time;
To all the rest are hope and mirth
When spring renews its prime.
Alas! the music Nature makes,

Ye landsmen all attend my verse, and I'll tell to ye a tale
Concerning the barque "Wm. Paterson" that was lost in a tempestuous gale;
She was on a voyage from Bangkok to the Clyde with a cargo of Teakwood,
And the crew numbered Fifteen in all of seamen firm and good.

'Twas on the 11th of March, when a violent gale from the southward broke out,
And for nine days during tempestuous weather their ship was tossed about
By the angry sea, and the barque she sprang a leak,

WELL then! I now do plainly see
   This busy world and I shall ne'er agree.
The very honey of all earthly joy
Does of all meats the soonest cloy;
   And they, methinks, deserve my pity
Who for it can endure the stings,
The crowd and buzz and murmurings,
   Of this great hive, the city.

Ah, yet, ere I descend to the grave
May I a small house and large garden have;
And a few friends, and many books, both true,
Both wise, and both delightful too!
   And since love ne'er will from me flee,

In the sweet, Atlantic
Breathing of spring
My curtain's like a butterfly,
Huge, fluttering
Like a Hindu widow
To a pyre's golden blaze,
Like a drowsy Naiad
To past-window seas.

I

all was in flight
wild geese in the sky
snow from the sky flying
rivers hastening to the sea
and waves from the midsea
hastening to the shore

horses running from a fence
fences running from the ground
ground fleeing from the sky
and the sky was filled with flying stars
and suns innumerable

daisies springing from the grass
pines fleeing up the mountainside
even the mountain was in flight
less swift than southward geese
or rivers in the spring

There's music in my heart all day,
I hear it late and early,
It comes from fields are far away,
The wind that shakes the barley.

Above the uplands drenched with dew
The sky hangs soft and pearly,
An emerald world is listening to
The wind that shakes the barley.

Above the bluest mountain crest
The lark is singing rarely,
It rocks the singer into rest,
The wind that shakes the barley.

Oh, still through summers and through springs
It calls me late and early.

The willow leaves fallen,
the spring gone dry,
rocks here and there.


Translated by Robert Hass

Which is the weakest thing of all
Mine heart can ponder?
The sun, a little cloud can pall
With darkness yonder?
The cloud, a little wind can move
Where'er it listeth?
The wind, a little leaf above,
Though sere, resisteth?

What time that yellow leaf was green,
My days were gladder;
But now, whatever Spring may mean,
I must grow sadder.
Ah me! a leaf with sighs can wring
My lips asunder -
Then is mine heart the weakest thing
Itself can ponder.

Reynard, the fox, was asked to a party.
"Come", they said, in your Sunday best,
For we like good form, tho' the fun be hearty;
So all who dance must be formally dressed:
Black tail-coat and a shirt-front gleaming.
Brushed and burnished each dancing shoe,
Pantaloons with a silk braid seaming,
Clean white gloves of the snowiest hue.
This most especially -
Very especially -
Snow-white gloves of a spotless hue.

Reynard, the fox, as he dressed (says the fable)
Dreamed of the dance and his lady love,

In his lodge beside a river,
Close beside a frozen river,
Sat an old man, sad and lonely.
White his hair was as a snow-drift;
Dull and low his fire was burning,
And the old man shook and trembled,
Folded in his Waubewyon,
In his tattered white-skin-wrapper,
Hearing nothing but the tempest
As it roared along the forest,
Seeing nothing but the snow-storm,
As it whirled and hissed and drifted.
All the coals were white with ashes,
And the fire was slowly dying,
As a young man, walking lightly,