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Like Flowers, that heard the news of Dews,
But never deemed the dripping prize
Awaited their—low Brows—
Or Bees—that thought the Summer's name
Some rumor of Delirium,
No Summer—could—for Them—

Or Arctic Creatures, dimly stirred—
By Tropic Hint—some Travelled Bird
Imported to the Wood—

Or Wind's bright signal to the Ear—
Making that homely, and severe,
Contented, known, before—

The Heaven—unexpected come,
To Lives that thought the Worshipping
A too presumptuous Psalm—

When the buds are blossoming,
Smiling welcome to the spring,
Lovers choose a wedding day -
Life is love in merry May!

Spring is green - Fal lal la!
Summer's rose - Fal lal la!
It is sad when Summer goes,
Fal la!
Autumn's gold - Fal lal la!
Winter's grey - Fal lal la!
Winter still is far away -
Fal la!
Leaves in Autumn fade and fall;
Winter is the end of all.
Spring and summer teem with glee:
Spring and summer, then, for me!
Fal la!

In the Spring-time seed is sown:
In the Summer grass is mown:

I who, conceived beneath another star,
Had been a prince and played with life, instead
Have been its slave, an outcast exiled far
From the fair things my faith has merited.
My ways have been the ways that wanderers tread
And those that make romance of poverty --
Soldier, I shared the soldier's board and bed,
And Joy has been a thing more oft to me
Whispered by summer wind and summer sea
Than known incarnate in the hours it lies
All warm against our hearts and laughs into our eyes.


I know not if in risking my best days

New Castle, July 4, 1878

or a hundred years the pulse of time
Has throbbed for Liberty;
For a hundred years the grand old clime
Columbia has been free;
For a hundred years our country's love,
The Stars and Stripes, has waved above.

Away far out on the gulf of years--
Misty and faint and white
Through the fogs of wrong--a sail appears,
And the Mayflower heaves in sight,
And drifts again, with its little flock
Of a hundred souls, on Plymouth Rock.

Do you see them there--as long, long since--

Senti sto fatto. Un giorno de st'istate
Lavoravo ar convento de Genzano,
E ssentivo de sopra ch'er guardiano
Tirava giù biastime a carrettate;

Perché, essenno le gente aridunate
Per cantà la novena a ssan Cazziano,
Cerca qua, chiama là, quer zagristano
Drento a le celle nun trovava un frate.

Era vicino a notte, e un pispillorio
Già se sentiva in de la chiesa piena,
Quanno senti che ffa ppadre Grigorio.

Curze a intoccà la tevola de cena,
E appena che fu empito er refettorio

Toward even when the day leans down,
To kiss the upturned face of night,
Out just beyond the loud-voiced town
I know a spot of calm delight.
Like crimson arrows from a quiver
The red rays pierce the water flowing,
While we go dreaming, singing, rowing,
To Leudeman's-on-the-River.

The hills, like some glad mocking-bird,
Send back our laughter and our singing,
While faint--and yet more faint is heard
The steeple bells all sweetly ringing.
Some message did the winds deliver
To each glad heart that August night,

It was 1963 or 4, summer,
and my father was driving our family
from Ft. Hood to North Carolina in our 56 Buick.
We'd been hearing about Klan attacks, and we knew

Mississippi to be more dangerous than usual.
Dark lay hanging from the trees the way moss did,
and when it moaned light against the windows
that night, my father pulled off the road to sleep.

Noises
that usually woke me from rest afraid of monsters
kept my father awake that night, too,

Thou art the goal for which my spirit longs;
As dove on dove,
Bound for one home, I send thee all my songs
With all my love.

Thou art the haven with fair harbour lights;
Safe locked in thee,
My heart would anchor after stormful nights
Alone at sea.

Thou art the rest of which my life is fain,
The perfect peace;
Absorbed in thee the world, with all its pain
And toil, would cease.

Thou art the heaven to which my soul would go!
O dearest eyes,
Lost in your light you would turn hell below
To Paradise.

There's a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield,
And the ricks stand gray to the sun,
Singing: -- "Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover,
And your English summer's done."
You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind,
And the thresh of the deep-sea rain;
You have heard the song -- how long! how long?
Pull out on the trail again!

Ha' done with the Tents of Shem, dear lass,
We've seen the seasons through,
And it's time to turn on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,

We will lay our summer away, my friend,
So tenderly lay it away.
It was bright and sweet to the very end,
Like one long, golden day.
Nothing sweeter could come to me,
Nothing sweeter to you.
We will lay it away, and let it be,
Hid from the whole world’s view.

We will lay it away like a dear, dead thing –
Dead, yet for ever fair;
And the fresh green robes of a deathless spring,
Though dead, it shall alaways wear.
We will not hide it in grave or tomb,
But lay it away to sleep,